GHOSTS 

I  Have  Met 


UC-NRLF 


B    M    1Q1 


JOHN  KENDRIC^  PANGS 


fPajje  97 


SUCH    GROTESQUE    ATTITUDES    AS    HIS    FIGURE    ASSUMED 
I    NEVER    SAW" 


GHOSTS    I 
HAVE  MET 

and   Some    Others.      By 

JOHN  KENDRICK  BANGS 

With    Illustrations    By 
Newell,  Frost,  ^Richards 


NEW    YORK    AND    LONDON 

HARPER  &   BROTHERS   PUBLISHERS 

1898 


BY  JOHN   KENDRICK   BANGS. 

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Copyright,  1898,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 


All  rights  reserved. 


TO 

CHOICE    SPIRITS 
EVERYWHERE 


M512438 


CONTENTS 


FACE 

GHOSTS  THAT  HAVE  HAUNTED  ME.     .     .  i 

THE  MYSTERY  OF  MY  GRANDMOTHER'S  HAIR 

SOFA 26 

THE  MYSTERY  OF  BARNEY  O'ROURKE  ...     43 

THE  EXORCISM  THAT  FAILED 57 

THURLOW'S  CHRISTMAS  STORY 109 

THE  DAMPMERE  MYSTERY 140 

*CARLETON  BARKER,  FIRST  AND  SECOND    .     .153 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


SUCH  GROTESQUE  ATTITUDES  AS  HIS 

FIGURE  ASSUMED  I  NEVER  SAW ".  Frontispiece 

I  TURNED  ABOUT,  AND  THERE,  FEAR 
FUL  TO  SEE,  SAT  THIS  THING  GRIN 
NING  AT  ME" Facing  p.  6 

THE  FRIENDLY  SPECTRE  STOOD  BY 

ME" "  l6 

HE  FLED  MADLY  THROUGH  THE 

WAINSCOTING  OF  THE  ROOM"  .  .  "  22 

THEN  HE  SET  ABOUT  TELLING  ME  OF 
THE  BEAUTIFUL  GOLD  AND  SILVER 
WARE  THEY  USE  IN  THE  ELYSIAN 
FIELDS  " "  24 

THERE  WAS    NO    ONE   THERE"   ...  "  32 

I  DRAINED  A  GLASS  OF  COOKING- 
SHERRY  TO  THE  DREGS"  ...  "  34 

'IT    HAD    TURNED    WHITE"     ....  "  40 

1  IT  IS  NOT  OFTEN  THAT  ONE'S  LITER 
ARY  CHICKENS  COME  HOME  TO 

ROOST" "        44 

''SIX  IMPTY  CHAIRS,  SORR '"    ...       "        54 
''L-LUL-LET  ME  OUT!'  HE  GASPED".        "        60 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

1  I    SHALL    KEEP     SHOVING    YOU     FOR 

EXACTLY   ONE   YEAR  '"....    Facing  p.    64 
I    WAS    FORCIBLY   UNCLAD".       ...  "  74 

HE  WAS  AMPLY  PROTECTED  "     ...  "  80 

PINNED    HIM    TO    THE    WALL    LIKE    A 

BUTTERFLY    ON    A   CORK"       ...  "          106 

FACE  TO  FACE" "  u6 

HE  RATTLED  ON  FOR  HALF  AN  HOUR  "  "  126 

THE  DEMON  VANISHED"      ....  "  128 
'  DOESN'T  DARE   LOOK   ME   IN   THE 

EYE!'" »  i34 

'  LOOK  AT  YOUR  SO-CALLED  STORY 

AND  SEE'"  .  . •'  138 

IT  WAS  TO  HE  THE  EFFORT  OF  HIS 

LIFE" "142 

WHEN  HE  ROSE  UP  IN  THE  MORNING 
HE  WOULD  FIND  EVERY  SINGLE 
HAIR  ON  HIS  HEAD  STANDING 
ERECT" "  146 

'  WEARS    HIS    QUEUE    POMPADOUR,  I 

SEE'" ••         148 


GHOSTS  I  HAVE  MET,  AND  SOME 
OTHERS 


GHOSTS  THAT  HAVE  HAUNTED  ME 

A   FEW   SPIRIT   REMINISCENCES 

IF  we  could  only  get  used  to  the  idea 
that  ghosts  are  perfectly  harmless  creatures, 
who  are  powerless  to  affect  our  well-being 
unless  we  assist  them  by  giving  way  to  our 
fears,  we  should  enjoy  the  supernatural  ex 
ceedingly,  it  seems  to  me.  Coleridge,  I  think 
it  was,  was  once  asked  by  a  lady  if  he  believed 
in  ghosts,  and  he  replied,  "  No,  madame  ;  I 
have  seen  too  many  of  them."  Which  is 
my  case  exactly.  I  have  seen  so  many 
horrid  visitants  from  other  worlds  that  they 
hardly  affect  me  at  all,  so  far  as  the  mere 
inspiration  of  terror  is  concerned.  On  the 
other  hand,  they  interest  me  hugely;  and 
while  I  must  admit  that  I  do  experience  all 
the  purely  physical  sensations  that  come 
from  horrific  encounters  of  this  nature,  I 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

can  truly  add  in  my  own  behalf  that  men 
tally  I  can  rise  above  the  physical  impulse 
to  run  away,  and,  invariably  standing  my 
ground,  1  have  gained  much  useful  infor 
mation  concerning  them.  I  am  prepared 
to  assert  that  if  a  thing  with  flashing  green 
eyes,  and  clammy  hands,  and  long,  dripping 
strips  of  sea-weed  in  place  of  hair,  should 
rise  up  out  of  the  floor  before  me  at  this 
moment,  2  A.M.,  and  nobody  in  the  house 
but  myself,  with  a  fearful,  nerve-destroying 
storm  raging  outside,  I  should  without 
hesitation  ask  it  to  sit  down  and  light  a 
cigar  and  state  its  business — or,  if  it  were 
of  the  female  persuasion,  to  join  me  in  a 
bottle  of  sarsaparilla — although  every  physi 
cal  manifestation  of  fear  of  which  my  poor 
body  is  capable  would  be  present.  I  have 
had  experiences  in  this  line  which,  if  I  could 
get  you  to  believe  them,  would  convince  you 
that  I  speak  the  truth.  Knowing  weak, 
suspicious  human  nature  as  I  do,  however, 
I  do  not  hope  ever  to  convince  you — though 
it  is  none  the  less  true — that  on  one  occa 
sion,  in  the  spring  of  1895,  there  was  a  spirit 
ual  manifestation  in  my  library  which  nearly 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

prostrated  me  physically,  but  which  mental 
ly  I  hugely  enjoyed,  because  I  was  mentally 
strong  enough  to  subdue  my  physical  re 
pugnance  for  the  thing  which  suddenly  and 
without  any  apparent  reason  materialized  in 
my  arm-chair. 

I'm  going  to  tell  you  about  it  briefly, 
though  I  warn  you  in  advance  that  you  will 
find  it  a  great  strain  upon  your  confidence, 
in  my  veracity.  It  may  even  shatter  that 
confidence  beyond  repair ;  but  I  cannot 
help  that.  I  hold  that  it  is  a  man's  duty 
in  this  life  to  give  to  the  world  the  benefit  of 
his  experience.  All  that  he  sees  he  should 
set  down  exactly  as  he  sees  it,  and  so  sim 
ply,  withal,  that  to  the  dullest  comprehen 
sion  the  moral  involved  shall  be  perfectly 
obvious.  If  he  is  a  painter,  and  an  auburn- 
haired  maiden  appears  to  him  to  have  blue 
hair,  he  should  paint  her  hair  blue,  and  just 
so  long  as  he  sticks  by  his  principles  and 
is  true  to  himself,  he  need  not  bother  about 
what  you  may  think  of  him.  So  it  is  with 
me.  My  scheme  of  living  is  based  upon 
being  true  to  myself.  You  may  class  me 
with  Baron  Munchausen  if  you  choose ;  I 
3 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

shall  not  mind  so  long  as  I  have  the  con 
solation  of  feeling,  deep  down  in  my  heart, 
that  I  am  a  true  realist,  and  diverge  not 
from  the  paths  of  truth  as  truth  manifests 
itself  to  me. 

This  intruder  of  whom  I  was  just  speak 
ing,  the  one  that  took  possession  of  my 
arm-chair  in  the  spring  of  1895,  was  about 
as  horrible  a  spectre  as  I  have  ever  had  the 
pleasure  to  have  haunt  me.  It  was  worse 
than  grotesque.  It  grated  on  every  nerve. 
Alongside  of  it  the  ordinary  poster  of  the 
present  day  would  seem  to  be  as  accurate 
in  drawing  as  a  bicycle  map,  and  in  its  col 
oring  it  simply  shrieked  with  discord. 

If  color  had  tones  which  struck  the  ear, 
instead  of  appealing  to  the  eye,  the  thing 
would  have  deafened  me.  It  was  about 
midnight  when  the  manifestation  first  took 
shape.  My  family  had  long  before  retired, 
and  I  had  just  finished  smoking  a  cigar— 
which  was  one  of  a  thousand  which  my  wife 
had  bought  for  me  at  a  Monday  sale  at  one 
of  the  big  department  stores  in  New  York. 
I  don't  remember  the  brand,  but  that  is 
just  as  well — it  was  not  a  cigar  to  be  adver- 
4 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

tised  in  a  civilized  piece  of  literature— but 
I  do  remember  that  they  came  in  bundles 
of  fifty,  tied  about  with  blue  ribbon.  The 
one  I  had  been  smoking  tasted  and  burned 
as  if  it  had  been  rolled  by  a  Cuban  insur 
rectionist  while  fleeing  from  a  Spanish  regi 
ment  through  a  morass,  gathering  its  com 
ponent  parts  as  he  ran.  It  had  two  distinct 
merits,  however.  No  man  could  possibly 
smoke  too  many  of  them,  and  they  were 
economical,  which  is  how  the  ever-helpful 
little  madame  came  to  get  them  for  me,  and 
I  have  no  doubt  they  will  some  day  prove 
very  useful  in  removing  insects  from  the 
rose-bushes.  They  cost  $3  99  a  thousand 
on  five  days  a  week,  but  at  the  Monday  sale 
they  were  marked  down  to  $i  75,  which  is 
why  my  wife,  to  whom  I  had  recently  read 
a  little  lecture  on  economy,  purchased  them 
for  me.  Upon  the  evening  in  question  I 
had  been  at  work  on  this  cigar  for  about 
two  hours,  and  had  smoked  one  side  of  it 
three-quarters  of  the  way  down  to  the  end, 
when  I  concluded  that  I  had  smoked  enough 

o 

— for  one  day — so  I  rose  up  to  cast  the 
other  side  into  the  fire,  which  was  flicker- 

5 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

ing  fitfully  in  my  spacious  fireplace.     This 
done,  I  turned  about,  and  there,  fearful  to 
see,  sat  this  thing  grinning  at  me  from  the 
depths  of  my  chair.     My  hair  not  only  stood 
on  end,  but  tugged  madly  in  an  effort  to  get 
away.     Four  hairs  —  I  can  prove  the  state 
ment  if  it  be  desired  —  did  pull  themselves 
loose  from  my  scalp  in  their  insane  desire  to 
rise  above  the  terrors  of  the  situation,  and, 
flying  upward,  stuck  like  nails  into  the  oak 
ceiling  directly  over  my  head,  whence  they 
had  to  be  pulled  the  next  morning  with  nip 
pers  by  our  hired  man,  who  would  no  doubt 
testify  to  the  truth  of  the  occurrence  as  I 
have  asserted  it  if  he  were  still  living,  which, 
unfortunately,  he  is  not.     Like  most  hired 
men,  he  was  subject  to  attacks  of  lethargy, 
from  one   of   which   he   died  last  summer. 
He  sank  into  a  rest  about  weed-time,  last 
June,  and   lingered  quietly  along   for   two 
months,  and   after  several  futile  efforts  to 
wake  him  up,  we  finally  disposed  of  him  to 
our  town  crematory  for  experimental   pur 
poses.     I  am  told  he  burned  very  actively, 
and  I  believe  it,  for  to  my  certain  knowl 
edge  he  was  very  dry,  and  not  so  green  as 
6 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

some  persons  who  had  previously  employed 
him  affected  to  think.  A  cold  chill  came 
over  me  as  my  eye  rested  upon  the  horrid 
visitor  and  noted  the  greenish  depths  of  his 
eyes  and  the  claw-like  formation  of  his  fin 
gers,  and  my  flesh  began  to  creep  like  an 
inch-worm.  At  one  time  I  was  conscious 
of  eight  separate  corrugations  on  my  back, 
and  my  arms  goose-fleshed  until  they  looked 
like  one  of  those  miniature  plaster  casts  of 
the  Alps  which  are  so  popular  in  Swiss  sum 
mer  resorts;  but  mentally  I  was  not  dis 
turbed  at  all.  My  repugnance  was  entirely 
physical,  and,  to  come  to  the  point  at  once, 
I  calmly  offered  the  spectre  a  cigar,  which 
it  accepted,  and  demanded  a  light.  I  gave 
it,  nonchalantly  lighting  the  match  upon  the 
goose-fleshing  of  my  wrist. 

Now  I  admit  that  this  was  extraordinary 
and  hardly  credible,  yet  it  happened  exactly 
as  I  have  set  it  down,  and,  furthermore,  I 
enjoyed  the  experience.  For  three  hours 
the  thing  and  I  conversed,  and  not  once 
during  that  time  did  my  hair  stop  pulling 
away  at  my  scalp,  or  the  repugnance  cease 
to  run  in  great  rolling  waves  up  and  down 
7 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

my  back.  If  I  wished  to  deceive  you,  I 
might  add  that  pin-feathers  began  to  grow 
from  the  goose-flesh,  but  that  would  be  a 
lie,  and  lying  and  I  are  not  friends,  and, 
furthermore,  this  paper  is  not  written  to 
amaze,  but  to  instruct. 

Except  for  its  personal  appearance,  this 
particular  ghost  was  not  very  remarkable, 
and  I  do  not  at  this  time  recall  any  of  the 
details  of  our  conversation  beyond  the  point 
that  my  share  of  it  was  not  particularly  co 
herent,  because  of  the  discomfort  attendant 
upon  the  fearful  hair-pulling  process  I  was 
going  through.  I  merely  cite  its  coming  to 
prove  that,  with  all  the  outward  visible  signs 
of  fear  manifesting  themselves  in  no  uncer 
tain  manner,  mentally  I  was  cool  enough 
to  cope  with  the  visitant,  and  sufficiently 
calm  and  at  ease  to  light  the  match  upon 
my  wrist,  perceiving  for  the  first  time,  with 
an  Edison-like  ingenuity,  one  of  the  uses  to 
which  goose-flesh  might  be  put,  and  knowing 
full  well  that  if  I  tried  to  light  it  on  the  sole 
of  my  shoe  I  should  have  fallen  to  the 
ground,  my  knees  being  too  shaky  to  ad 
mit  of  my  standing  on  one  leg  even  for  an 
8 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

instant.  Had  I  been  mentally  overcome,  I 
should  have  tried  to  light  the  match  on  my 
foot,  and  fallen  ignominiously  to  the  floor 
then  and  there. 

There  was  another  ghost  that  I  recall  to 
prove  my  point,  who  was  of  very  great  use 
to  me  in  the  summer  immediately  following 
the  spring  of  which  I  have  just  told  you. 
You  will  possibly  remember  how  that  the 
summer  of  1895  nad  rather  more  than  its  fair 
share  of  heat,  and  that  the  lovely  New 
Jersey  town  in  which  I  have  the  happiness 
to  dwell  appeared  to  be  the  headquarters 
of  the  temperature.  The  thermometers  of 
the  nation  really  seemed  to  take  orders 
from  Beachdale,  and  properly  enough,  for 
our  town  is  a  born  leader  in  respect  to 
heat.  Having  no  property  to  sell,  I  can 
didly  admit  that  Beachdale  is  not  of  an  arc 
tic  nature  in  summer,  except  socially,  per 
haps.  Socially,  it  is  the  coolest  town  in 
the  State;  but  we  are  at  this  moment 
not  discussing  cordiality,  fraternal  love,  or 
the  question  raised  by  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  as  to  whether  all  men  are 
born  equal.  The  warmth  we  have  in  hand 
9 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

is  what  the  old  lady  called  "  Fahrenheat," 
and,  from  a  thermometric  point  of  view, 
Beachdale,  if  I  may  be  a  trifle  slangy,  as  I 
sometimes  am,  has  heat  to  burn.  There 
are  mitigations  of  this  heat,  it  is  true,  but 
they  generally  come  along  in  winter. 

I  must  claim,  in  behalf  of  my  town,  that 
never  in  all  my  experience  have  I  known  a 
summer  so  hot  that  it  was  not,  sooner  or 
later_by  January,  anyhow — followed  by  a 
cool  spell.  But  in  the  summer  of  1895 
even  the  real-estate  agents  confessed  that 
the  cold  wave  announced  by  the  weather 
bureau  at  Washington  summered  else 
where — in  the  tropics,  perhaps,  but  not  at 
Beachdale.  One  hardly  dared  take  a  bath 
in  the  morning  for  fear  of  being  scald 
ed  by  the  fluid  that  flowed  from  the  cold- 
water  faucet — our  reservoir  is  entirely  un 
protected  by  shade-trees,  and  in  summer 
a  favorite  spot  for  young  Wai  tons  who  like 
to  catch  bass  already  boiled— my  neighbors 
and  myself  lived  on  cracked  ice,  ice-cream, 
and  destructive  cold  drinks.  I  do  not  my 
self  mind  hot  weather  in  the  daytime,  but 
hot  nights  are  killing.  I  can't  sleep.  I 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

toss  about  for  hours,  and  then,  for  the  sake 
of  variety,  I  flop,  but  sleep  cometh  not.  My 
debts  double,  and  my  income  seems  to  sizzle 
away  under  the  influence  of  a  hot,  sleepless 
night ;  and  it  was  just  here  that  a  certain 
awful  thing  saved  me  from  the  insanity 
which  is  a  certain  result  of  parboiled  in 
somnia. 

It  was  about  the  i6th  of  July,  which,  as  I 
remember  reading  in  an  extra  edition  of  the 
Evening  Bun,  got  out  to  mention  the  fact, 
was  the  hottest  i6th  of  July  known  in  thirty- 
eight  years.  I  had  retired  at  half-past  sev 
en,  after  dining  lightly  upon  a  cold  salmon 
and  a  gallon  of  iced  tea — not  because  I  was 
tired,  but  because  I  wanted  to  get  down  to 
first  principles  at  once,  and  remove  my 
clothing,  and  sort  of  spread  myself  over 
all  the  territory  I  could,  which  is  a  thing 
you  can't  do  in  a  library,  or  even  in  a  white- 
and-gold  parlor.  If  man  were  constructed 
like  a  machine,  as  he  really  ought  to  be, 
to  be  strictly  comfortable — a  machine  that 
could  be  taken  apart  like  an  eight -day 
clock — I  should  have  taken  myself  apart, 
putting  one  section  of  myself  on  the  roof, 
ii 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

another  part  in  the  spare  room,  hanging  a 
third  on  the  clothes-line  in  the  yard,  and  so 
on,  leaving  my  head  in  the  ice-box;  but 
unfortunately  we  have  to  keep  ourselves 
together  in  this  life,  hence  I  did  the  only 
thing  one  can  do,  and  retired,  and  incident 
ally  spread  myself  over  some  freshly  baked 
bedclothing.  There  was  some  relief  from 
the  heat,  but  not  much.  I  had  been  roast 
ing,  and  while  my  sensations  were  some 
what  like  those  which  I  imagine  come  to  a 
planked  shad  when  he  first  finds  himself 
spread  out  over  the  plank,  there  was  a  miti 
gation.  My  temperature  fell  off  from  167 
to  about  163,  which  is  not  quite  enough  to 
make  a  man  absolutely  content.  Sudden 
ly,  however,  I  began  to  shiver.  There  was 
no  breeze,  but  I  began  to  shiver. 

"  It  is  getting  cooler,"  I  thought,  as  the 
chill  came  on,  and  I  rose  and  looked  at  the 
thermometer.  It  still  registered  the  highest 
possible  point,  and  the  mercury  was  rebel- 
liously  trying  to  break  through  the  top  of 
the  glass  tube  and  take  a  stroll  on  the  roof. 

"That's  queer,"  I  said  to  myself.  "It's 
as  hot  as  ever,  and  yet  I'm  shivering.  I 
12 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

wonder  if  my  goose  is  cooked  ?  I've  cer 
tainly  got  a  chill." 

I  jumped  back  into  bed  and  pulled  the 
sheet  up  over  me ;  but  still  I  shivered. 
Then  I  pulled  the  blanket  up,  but  the  chill 
continued.  I  couldn't  seem  to  get  warm 
again.  Then  came  the  counterpane,  and 
finally  I  had  to  put  on  my  bath -robe  —  a 
fuzzy  woollen  affair,  which  in  midwinter  I 
had  sometimes  found  too  warm  for  com 
fort.  Even  then  I  was  not  sufficiently  bun 
dled  up,  so  I  called  for  an  extra  blanket, 
two  afghans,  and  the  hot-water  bag. 

Everybody  in  the  house  thought  I  had 
gone  mad,  and  I  wondered  myself  if  per 
haps  I  hadn't,  when  all  of  a  sudden  I  per 
ceived,  off  in  the  corner,  the  Awful  Thing, 
and  perceiving  it,  I  knew  all. 

I  was  being  haunted,  and  the  physical 
repugnance  of  which  I  have  spoken  was 
on.  The  cold  shiver,  the  invariable  accom 
paniment  of  the  ghostly  visitant,  had  come, 
and  I  assure  you  I  never  was  so  glad  of 
anything  in  my  life.  It  has  always  been 
said  of  me  by  my  critics  that  I  am  raw ;  I 
was  afraid  that  after  that  night  they  would 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

say  I  was  half  baked,  and  I  would  far  rather 
be  the  one  than  the  other ;  and  it  was  the 
Awful  Thing  that  saved  me.  Realizing 
this,  I  spoke  to.it  gratefully. 

"  You  are  a  heaven-born  gift  on  a  night 
like  this,"  said  I,  rising  up  and  walking  to 
its  side. 

"  I  am  glad  to  be  of  service  to  you,"  the 
Awful  Thing  replied,  smiling  at  me  so  yel- 
lowly  that  I  almost  wished  the  author  of  the 
Blue-Button  of  Cowardice  could  have  seen  it. 

"  It's  very  good  of  you,"  I  put  in. 

"Not  at  all,"  replied  the  Thing;  "you 
are  the  only  man  I  know  who  doesn't  think 
it  necessary  to  prevaricate  about  ghosts 
every  time  he  gets  an  order  for  a  Christ 
mas  story.  There  have  been  more  lies  told 
about  us  than  about  any  other  class  of 
things  in  existence,  and  we  are  getting  a 
trifle  tired  of  it.  We  may  have  lost  our 
corporeal  existence,  but  some  of  our  sensi 
tiveness  still  remains." 

"  Well,"  said  I,  rising  and  lighting  the 
gas-logs — for  I  was  on  the  very  verge  of 
congealment — "  I  am  sure  I  am  pleased  if 
you  like  my  stories." 

14 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

"Oh,  as  for  that,  I  don't  think  much  of 
them,"  said  the  Awful  Thing,  with  a  purple 
display  of  candor  which  amused  me,  al 
though  I  cannot  say  that  I  relished  it; 
"  but  you  never  lie  about  us.  You  are  not 
at  all  interesting,  but  you  are  truthful,  and 
we  spooks  hate  libellers.  Just  because  one 
happens  to  be  a  thing  is  no  reason  why 
writers  should  libel  it,  and  that's  why  I  have 
always  respected  you.  We  regard  you  as  a 
sort  of  spook  Boswell.  You  may  be  dull 
and  stupid,  but  you  tell  the  truth,  and  when 
I  saw  you  in  imminent  danger  of  becoming 
a  mere  grease  spot,  owing  to  the  fearful 
heat,  I  decided  to  help  you  through.  That's 
why  I'm  here.  Go  to  sleep  now.  I'll  stay 
here  and  keep  you  shivering  until  daylight 
anyhow.  I'd  stay  longer,  but  we  are  always 
laid  at  sunrise." 

"  Like  an  egg,"  I  said,  sleepily. 

"  Tutt !"  said  the  ghost.  "  Go  to  sleep. 
If  you  talk  I'll  have  to  go." 

And  so  I  dropped  off  to  sleep  as  softly 

and  as   sweetly  as   a  tired   child.     In   the 

morning  I  awoke  refreshed.     The  rest  of 

my  family  were  prostrated,  but  I  was  fresh. 

15 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

The  Awful  Thing  was  gone,  and  the  room 
was  warming  up  again ;  and  if  it  had  not 
been  for  the  tinkling  ice  in  my  water-pitch 
er,  I  should  have  suspected  it  was  all  a 
dream.  And  so  throughout  the  whole  siz 
zling  summer  the  friendly  spectre  stood  by 
me  and  kept  me  cool,  and  I  haven't  a  doubt 
that  it  was  because  of  his  good  offices  in 
keeping  me  shivering  on  those  fearful  Au 
gust  nights  that  I  survived  the  season,  and 
came  to  my  work  in  the  autumn  as  fit  as  a 
fiddle— so  fit,  indeed,  that  I  have  not  writ 
ten  a  poem  since  that  has  not  struck  me  as 
being  the  very  best  of  its  kind,  and  if  I  can 
find  a  publisher  who  will  take  the  risk  of 
putting  those  poems  out,  I  shall  unequivo 
cally  and  without  hesitation  acknowledge, 
as  I  do  here,  my  debt  of  gratitude  to  my 
friends  in  the  spirit  world. 

Manifestations  of  this  nature,  then,  are 
harmful,  as  I  have  already  observed,  only 
when  the  person  who  is  haunted  yields  to 
his  physical  impulses.  Fought  stubbornly 
inch  by  inch  with  the  will,  they  can  be  sub 
dued,  and  often  they  are  a  boon.  I  think  I 
have  proved  both  these  points.  It  took  me 
16 


THE    FRIENDLY    SPECTRE    STOOD    BY    ME" 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

a  long  time  to  discover  the  facts,  however, 
and  my  discovery  came  about  in  this  way. 
It  may  perhaps  interest  you  to  know  how 
I  made  it.  I  encountered  at  the  English 
home  of  a  wealthy  friend  at  one  time  a 
"presence"  of  an  insulting  turn  of  mind. 
It  was  at  my  friend  Jarley's  little  baronial 
hall,  which  he  had  rented  from  the  Earl  of 
Brokedale  the  year  Mrs.  Jarley  was  pre 
sented  at  court.  The  Countess  of  Broke- 
dale's  social  influence  went  with  the  cha 
teau  for  a  slightly  increased  rental,  which' 
was  why  the  Jarleys  took  it.  I  was  invited 
to  spend  a  month  with  them,  not  so  much 
because  Jarley  is  fond  of  me  as  because 
Mrs.  Jarley  had  a  sort  of  an  idea  that,  as  a 
writer,  I  might  say  something  about  their 
newly  acquired  glory  in  some  American 
Sunday  newspaper ;  and  Jarley  laughingly 
assigned  to  me  the  "  haunted  chamber," 
without  at  least  one  of  which  no  baronial 
hall  in  the  old  country  is  considered  worthy 
of  the  name. 

"  It  will  interest  you  more  than  any  oth 
er,"  Jarley  said ;  "  and  if  it  has  a  ghost,  I 
imagine  you  will  be  able  to  subdue  him." 
B  17 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

I  gladly  accepted  the  hospitality  of  my 
friend,  and  was  delighted  at  his  consider 
ation  in  giving  me  the  haunted  chamber, 
where  I  might  pursue  my  investigations 
into  the  subject  of  phantoms  undisturbed. 
Deserting  London,  then,  for  a  time,  I  ran 
down  to  Brokedale  Hall,  and  took  up  my 
abode  there  with  a  half-dozen  other  guests. 
Jarley,  as  usual  since  his  sudden  "gold- 
fall,"  as  Wilkins  called  it,  did  everything 
with  a  lavish  hand.  I  believe  a  man  could 
have  got  diamonds  on  toast  if  he  had  chosen 
to  ask  for  them.  However,  this  is  apart 
from  my  story. 

I  had  occupied  the  haunted  chamber 
about  two  weeks  before  anything  of  im 
portance  occurred,  and  then  it  came — and 
a  more  unpleasant,  ill-mannered  spook  nev 
er  floated  in  the  ether.  He  materialized 
about  3  A.M.  and  was  unpleasantly  sulphur 
ous  to  one's  perceptions.  He  sat  upon  the 
divan  in  my  room,  holding  his  knees  in 
his  hands,  leering  and  scowling  upon 
me  as  though  I  were  the  intruder,  and 
not  he. 

"  Who  are  you  ?"  I  asked,  excitedly,  as 
iS 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

in  the  dying  light  of  the  log  fire  he  loomed 
grimly  up  before  me. 

"  None  of  your  business,"  he  replied,  in 
solently,  showing  his  teeth  as  he  spoke. 
"  On  the  other  hand,  who  are  you  ?  This 
is  my  room,  and  not  yours,  and  it  is  I  who 
have  the  right  to  question.  If  you  have 
any  business  here,  well  and  good.  If  not, 
you  will  oblige  me  by  removing  yourself, 
for  your  presence  is  offensive  to  me." 

"  I  am  a  guest  in  the  house,"  I  answered, 
restraining  my  impulse  to  throw  the  ink 
stand  at  him  for  his  impudence.  "And 
this  room  has  been  set  apart  for  my  use  by 
my  host." 

"  One  of  the  servant's  guests,  1  presume?" 
he  said,  insultingly,  his  lividly  lavender- 
like  lip  upcurling  into  a  haughty  sneer, 
which  was  maddening  to  a  self-respecting 
worm  like  myself. 

I  rose  up  from  my  bed,  and  picked  up  the 
poker  to  bat  him  over  the  head,  but  again 
I  restrained  myself.  It  will  not  do  to  quar 
rel,  I  thought.  I  will  be  courteous  if  he  is 
not,  thus  giving  a  dead  Englishman  a  lesson 
which  wouldn't  hurt  some  of  the  living. 
19 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

"  No,"  I  said,  my  voice  tremulous  with 
wrath — "  no ;  I  am  the  guest  of  my  friend 
Mr.  Jarley,  an  American,  who — 

"  Same  thing,"  observed  the  intruder,  with 
a  yellow  sneer.  "  Race  of  low -class  ani 
mals,  those  Americans — only  fit  for  gentle 
men's  stables,  you  know." 

This  was  too  much.  A  ghost  may  insult 
me  with  impunity,  but  when  he  tackles  my 
people  he  must  look  out  for  himself.  I 
sprang  forward  with  an  ejaculation  of  wrath, 
and  with  all  my  strength  struck  at  him  with 
the  poker,  which  I  still  held  in  my  hand. 
If  he  had  been  anything  but  a  ghost,  he 
would  have  been  split  vertically  from  top 
to  toe ;  but  as  it  was,  the  poker  passed 
harmlessly  through  his  misty  make-up,  and 
rent  a  great  gash  two  feet  long  in  Jarley's 
divan.  The  yellow  sneer  faded  from  his  lips, 
and  a  maddening  blue  smile  took  its  place. 

"  Humph  !"  he  observed,  nonchalantly. 
"  What  a  useless  ebullition,  and  what  a 
vulgar  display  of  temper!  Really  you  are 
the  most  humorous  insect  I  have  yet  en 
countered.  From  what  part  of  the  States 
do  you  come?  I  am  truly  interested  to 
20 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

know  in  what  kind  of  soil  exotics  of  your 
peculiar  kind  are  cultivated.  Are  you  part 
of  the  fauna  or  the  flora  of  your  tropical 
States — or  what  ?" 

And  then  I  realized  the  truth.  There  is 
no  physical  method  of  combating  a  ghost 
which  can  result  in  his  discomfiture,  so  I 
resolved  to  try  the  intellectual.  It  was  a 
mind-to-mind  contest,  and  he  was  easy  prey 
after  I  got  going.  I  joined  him  in  his 
blue  smile,  and  began  to  talk  about  the 
English  aristocracy;  for  I  doubted  not,  from 
the  spectre's  manner,  that  he  was  or  had 
been  one  of  that  class.  He  had  about  him 
that  haughty  lack  of  manners  which  be 
spoke  the  aristocrat.  I  waxed  very  elo 
quent  when,  as  I  say,  I  got  my  mind  really 
going.  I  spoke  of  kings  and  queens  and 
their  uses  in  no  uncertain  phrases,  of  divine 
right,  of  dukes,  earls,  marquises — of  all  the 
pompous  establishments  of  British  royalty 
and  nobility — with  that  contemptuously  hu 
morous  tolerance  of  a  necessary  and  some 
what  amusing  evil  which  we  find  in  American 
comic  papers.  We  had  a  battle  royal  for 
about  one  hour,  and  1  must  confess  he  was 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

a  foeman  worthy  of  any  man's  steel,  so  long 
as  I  was  reasonable  in  my  arguments ;  but 
when  I  finally  observed  that  it  wouldn't  be 
ten  years  before  Barnum  and  Bailey's  Great 
est  Show  on  Earth  had  the  whole  lot  en 
gaged  for  the  New  York  circus  season, 
stalking  about  the  Madison  Square  Garden 
arena,  with  the  Prince  of  Wales  at  the  head 
beating  a  tomtom,  he  grew  iridescent  with 
wrath,  and  fled  madly  through  the  wainscot 
ing  of  the  room.  It  was  purely  a  mental 
victory.  All  the  physical  possibilities  of 
my  being  would  have  exhausted  themselves 
futilely  before  him  ;  but  when  I  turned  upon 
him  the  resources  of  my  fancy,  my  imagi 
nation  unrestrained,  and  held  back  by  no 
sense  of  responsibility,  he  was  as  a  child  in 
my  hands,  obstreperous  but  certain  to  be 
subdued.  If  it  were  not  for  Mrs.  Jarley's 
wrath— which,  I  admit,  she  tried  to  con 
ceal — over  the  damage  to  her  divan,  I  should 
now  look  back  upon  that  visitation  as  the 
most  agreeable  haunting  experience  of  my 
life;  at  any  rate,  it  was  at  that  time  that  I 
first  learned  how  to  handle  ghosts,  and  since 
that  time  I  have  been  able  to  overcome 

22 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

them  without  trouble — save  in  one  instance, 
with  which  I  shall  close  this  chapter  of  my 
reminiscences,  and  which  I  give  only  to 
prove  the  necessity  of  observing  strictly 
one  point  in  dealing  with  spectres. 

It  happened  last  Christmas,  in  my  own 
home.  I  had  provided  as  a  little  surprise 
for  my  wife  a  complete  new  solid  silver 
service  marked  with  her  initials.  The  tree 
had  been  prepared  for  the  children,  and  all 
had  retired  save  myself.  I  had  lingered 
later  than  the  others  to  put  the  silver  ser 
vice  under  the  tree,  where  its  happy  recipient 
would  find  it  when  she  went  to  the  tree  with 
the  little  ones  the  next  morning.  It  made 
a  magnificent  display:  the  two  dozen  of 
each  kind  of  spoon,  the  forks,  the  knives, 
the  coffee-pot,  water-urn,  and  all ;  the  sal 
vers,  the  vegetable-dishes,  olive-forks,  cheese- 
scoops,  and  other  dazzling  attributes  of  a 
complete  service,  not  to  go  into  details,  pre 
sented  a  fairly  scintillating  picture  which 
would  have  made  me  gasp  if  I  had  not,  at 
the  moment  when  my  own  breath  began  to 
catch,  heard  another  gasp  in  the  corner  im 
mediately  behind  me.  Turning  about  quick- 
23 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

ly  to  see  whence  it  came,  I  observed  a  dark 
figure  in  the  pale  light  of  the  moon  which 
streamed  in  through  the  window. 

"  Who  are  you  ?"  I  cried,  starting  back, 
the  physical  symptoms  of  a  ghostly  presence 
manifesting  themselves  as  usual. 

"  I  am  the  ghost  of  one  long  gone  before," 
was  the  reply,  in  sepulchral  tones. 

I  breathed  a  sigh  of  relief,  for  I  had  for 
a  moment  feared  it  was  a  burglar. 

"  Oh  !"  I  said.  "  You  gave  me  a  start  at 
first.  I  was  afraid  you  were  a  material  thing 
come  to  rob  me."  Then  turning  towards 
the  tree,  I  observed,  with  a  wave  of  the 
hand,  "  Fine  lay  out,  eh  ?" 

"  Beautiful,"  he  said,  hollowly.  "  Yet  not 
so  beautiful  as  things  Tve  seen  in  realms 
beyond  your  ken." 

And  then  he  set  about  telling  me  of  the 
beautiful  gold  and  silver  ware  they  used  in 
the  Elysian  Fields,  and  I  must  confess  Monte 
Cristo  would  have  had  a  hard  time,  with 
Sindbad  the  Sailor  to  help,  to  surpass  the 
picture  of  royal  magnificence  the  spectre 
drew.  I  stood  inthralled  until,  even  as  he 
was  talking,  the  clock  struck  three,  when  he 
24 


H   O 


-o 
f 

o 

> 
2 

c 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

rose  up,  and  moving  slowly  across  the  floor, 
barely  visible,  murmured  regretfully  that  he 
must  be  off,  with  which  he  faded  away  down 
the  back  stairs.  I  pulled  my  nerves,  which 
were  getting  rather  strained,  together  again, 
and  went  to  bed. 

Next  morning  every  bit  of  that  silver-ware 
was  gone;  and,  what  is  more,  three  weeks 
later  I  found  the  ghost's  picture  in  the 
Rogues'  Gallery  in  New  York  as  that  of 
the  cleverest  sneak-thief  in  the  country. 

All  of  which,  let  me  say  to  you,  dear 
reader,  in  conclusion,  proves  that  when  you 
are  dealing  with  ghosts  you  mustn't  give  up 
all  your  physical  resources  until  you  have 
definitely  ascertained  that  the  thing  by  which 
you  are  confronted,  horrid  or  otherwise,  is  a 
ghost,  and  not  an  all  too  material  rogue  with 
a  light  step,  and  a  commodious  jute  bag  for 
plunder  concealed  beneath  his  coat. 

"  How  to  tell  a  ghost?"  you  ask. 

Well,  as  an  eminent  master  of  fiction  fre 
quently  observes  in  his  writings,  "  that  is 
another  story,"  which  I  shall  hope  some 
day  to  tell  for  your  instruction  and  my 
own  aggrandizement. 
25 


THE    MYSTERY    OF    MY   GRAND 
MOTHER'S    HAIR   SOFA 

IT  happened  last  Christmas  Eve,  and  pre 
cisely  as  I  am  about  to  set  it  forth.  It  has 
been  said  by  critics  that  I  am  a  romancer 
of  the  wildest  sort,  but  that  is  where  my 
critics  are  wrong.  I  grant  that  the  expe 
riences  through  which  I  have  passed,  some 
of  which  have  contributed  to  the  gray  mat 
ter  in  my  hair,  however  little  they  may  have 
augmented  that  within  my  cranium  —  ex 
periences  which  I  have  from  time  to  time 
set  forth  to  the  best  of  my  poor  abilities  in 
the  columns  of  such  periodicals  as  I  have 
at  my  mercy  —  have  been  of  an  order  so 
excessively  supernatural  as  to  give  my 
critics  a  basis  for  their  aspersions ;  but 
they  do  not  know,  as  I  do,  that  that  basis 
is  as  uncertain  as  the  shifting  sands  of 
26 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

the  sea,  inasmuch  as  in  the  setting  forth  of 
these  episodes  I  have  narrated  them  as 
faithfully  as  the  most  conscientious  realist 
could  wish,  and  am  therefore  myself  a 
true  and  faithful  follower  of  the  realistic 
school.  I  cannot  be  blamed  because  these 
things  happen  to  me.  If  I  sat  down  in  my 
study  to  imagine  the  strange  incidents  to 
which  I  have  in  the  past  called  attention, 
with  no  other  object  in  view  than  to  make 
my  readers  unwilling  to  retire  for  the  night, 
to  destroy  the  peace  of  mind  of  those  who 
are  good  enough  to  purchase  my  literary 
wares,  or  to  titillate  till  tense  the  nerve  tis 
sue  of  the  timid  who  come  to  smile  and 
who  depart  unstrung,  then  should  I  deserve 
the  severest  condemnation  ;  but  these  things 
I  do  not  do.  I  have  a  mission  in  life  winch 
I  hold  as  sacred  as  my  good  friend  Mr. 
Howells  holds  his.  Such  phases  of  life  as 
I  see  I  put  down  faithfully,  and  if  the  Fates 
in  their  wisdom  have  chosen  to  make  of  me 
the  Balzac  of  the  Supernatural,  the  Shake 
speare  of  the  Midnight  Visitation,  while  ele 
vating  Mr.  Howells  to  the  high  office  of  the 
Fielding  of  Massachusetts  and  its  adjacent 
27 


GHOSTS    1    HAVE    MET 

States,  the  Smollett  of  Boston,  and  the 
Sterne  of  Altruria,  I  can  only  regret  that 
the  powers  have  dealt  more  graciously  with 
him  than  with  me,  and  walk  my  little  way 
as  gracefully  as  I  know  how.  The  slings 
and  arrows  of  outrageous  fortune  I  am  pre 
pared  to  suffer  in  all  meekness  of  spirit;  I 
accept  them  because  it  seems  to  me  to  be 
nobler  in  the  mind  so  to  do  rather  than  by 
opposing  to  end  them.  And  so  to  my  story. 
I  have  prefaced  it  at  such  length  for  but 
one  reason,  and  that  is  that  I  am  aware 
that  there  will  be  those  who  will  doubt  the 
veracity  of  my  tale,  and  I  am  anxious  at 
the  outset  to  impress  upon  all  the  unques 
tioned  fact  that  what  I  am  about  to  tell  is 
the  plain,  unvarnished  truth,  and,  as  I  have 
alreadysaid,  it  happened  last  Christmas  Eve. 
I  regret  to  have  to  say  so,  for  it  sounds 
so  much  like  the  description  given  to  other 
Christmas  Eves  by  writers  with  a  less  con 
scientious  regard  for  the  truth  than  I  pos 
sess,  but  the  facts  must  be  told,  and  I  must 
therefore  state  that  it  was  a  wild  and  stormy 
night.  The  winds  howled  and  moaned  and 
made  all  sorts  of  curious  noises,  soughing 
28 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

through  the  bare  limbs  of  the  trees,  whist 
ling  through  the  chimneys,  and,  with  reck 
less  disregard  of  my  children's  need  of  rest, 
slamming  doors  until  my  house  seemed  to 
be  the  centre  of  a  bombardment  of  no  mean 
order.  It  is  also  necessary  to  state  that 
the  snow,  which  had  been  falling  all  day, 
had  clothed  the  lawns  and  house-tops  in  a 
dazzling  drapery  of  white,  and,  not  content 
with  having  done  this  to  the  satisfaction  of 
all,  was  still  -falling,  and,  happily  enough, 
as  silently  as  usual.  Were  I  the  "  wild 
romancer  "  that  I  have  been  called,  I  might 
have  had  the  snow  fall  with  a  thunderous 
roar,  but  I  cannot  go  to  any  such  length. 
I  love  my  fellow-beings,  but  there  is  a  limit 
to  my  philanthropy,  and  I  shall  not  have 
my  snow  fall  noisily  just  to  make  a  critic 
happy.  I  might  do  it  to  save  his  life,  for 
I  should  hate  to  have  a  man  die  for  the 
want  of  what  I  could  give  him  with  a  stroke 
of  my  pen,  and  without  any  special  effort, 
but  until  that  emergency  arises  I  shall  not 
yield  a  jot  in  the  manner  of  the  falling  of 
my  snow. 

Occasionally  a  belated  home-comer  would 
29 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

pass  my  house,  the  sleigh-bells  strung  about 
the  ample  proportions  of  his  steed  jingling 
loud  above  the  roaring  of  the  winds.  My 
family  had  retired,  and  I  sat  alone  in  the 
glow  of  the  blazing  log — a  very  satisfactory 
gas  affair  —  on  the  hearth.  The  flashing 
jet  flames  cast  the  usual  grotesque  shadows 
about  the  room,  and  my  mind  had  thereby 
been  reduced  to  that  sensitive  state  which 
had  hitherto  betokened  the  coming  of  a 
visitor  from  other  realms — a  fact  which  I 
greatly  regretted,  for  I  was  in  no  mood  to 
be  haunted.  My  first  impulse,  when  I  rec 
ognized  the  on-coming  of  that  mental  state 
which  is  evidenced  by  the  goosing  of  one's 
flesh,  if  I  may  be  allowed  the  expression, 
was  to  turn  out  the  fire  and  go  to  bed.  I 
have  always  found  this  the  easiest  method 
of  ridding  myself  of  unwelcome  ghosts,  and, 
conversely,  I  have  observed  that  others  who 
have  been  haunted  unpleasantly  have  suf 
fered  in  proportion  to  their  failure  to  take 
what  has  always  seemed  to  me  to  be  the 
most  natural  course  in  the  world — to  hide 
their  heads  beneath  the  bed-covering.  Bru 
tus,  when  Caesar's  ghost  appeared  beside 
30 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

his  couch,  before  the  battle  of  Philippi,  sat 
up  and  stared  upon  the  horrid  apparition, 
and  suffered  correspondingly,  when  it  would 
have  been  much  easier  and  more  natural  to 
put  his  head  under  his  pillow,  and  so  shut 
out  the  unpleasant  spectacle.  That  is  the 
course  I  have  invariably  pursued,  and  it  has 
never  failed  me.  The  most  luminous  ghost 
man  ever  saw  is  utterly  powerless  to  shine 
through  a  comfortably  stuffed  pillow,  or  the 
usual  Christmas-time  quota  of  woollen  blan 
kets.  But  upon  this  occasion  I  preferred 
to  await  developments.  The  real  truth  is 
that  I  was  about  written  out  in  the  matter 
of  visitations,  and  needed  a  reinforcement 
of  my  uncanny  vein,  which,  far  from  being 
varicose,  had  become  sclerotic,  so  dry  had 
it  been  pumped  by  the  demands  to  which 
it  had  been  subjected  by  a  clamorous,  mys 
tery-loving  public.  I  had,  I  may  as  well 
confess  it,  run  out  of  ghosts,  and  had  come 
down  to  the  writing  of  tales  full  of  the 
horror  of  suggestion,  leaving  my  readers 
unsatisfied  through  my  failure  to  describe 
in  detail  just  what  kind  of  looking  thing  it 
was  that  had  so  aroused  their  apprehension ; 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

and  one  editor  had  gone  so  far  as  to  reject 
my  last  ghost-story  because  I   had  worked 
him  up  to  a  fearful  pitch  of  excitement,  and 
left  him  there  without  any  reasonable  way 
out.     I  was  face  to  face  with  a  condition— 
which,  briefly,  was  that  hereafter  that   de 
sirable  market  was  closed  to  the  products 
of  my  pen  unless  my  contributions  were  ac 
companied  by  a  diagram  which  should  make 
my  mysteries   so  plain  that    a    little    child 
could  understand  how  it  all  came  to  pass. 
Hence  it  was  that,  instead  of  following  my 
own  convenience  and  taking  refuge  in  my 
spectre-proof  couch,  I   stayed  where  I  was. 
I  had  not  long  to  wait.    The  dial  in  my  fuel- 
meter  below-stairs  had  hardly  had  time  to 
register  the  consumption  of  three  thousand 
feet  of  gas  before  the  faint  sound  of  a  bell 
reached  my  straining  ears — which,  by-the- 
way,  is  an  expression  I  profoundly  hate,  but 
must  introduce  because  the  public  demands 
it,  and  a  ghost-story  without  straining  ears 
having  therefore  no  chance  of  acceptance 
by  a  discriminating  editor.     I  started  from 
my  chair  and  listened  intently,  but  the  ring 
ing  had  stopped,  and  I  settled  back  to  the 
32 


"THERE  WAS  NO  ONE  THERE" 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

delights  of  a  nervous  chill,  when  again  the 
deathly  silence  of  the  night — the  wind  had 
quieted  in  time  to  allow  me  the  use  of  this 
faithful,  overworked  phrase — was  broken  by 
the  tintinnabulation  of  the  bell.  This  time 
I  recognized  it  as  the  electric  bell  operated 
by  a  push-button  upon  the  right  side  of  my 
front  door.  To  rise  and  rush  to  the  door 
was  the  work  of  a  moment.  It  always  is. 
In  another  instant  I  had  flung  it  wide. 
This  operation  was  singularly  easy,  consid 
ering  that  it  was  but  a  narrow  door,  and 
width  was  the  last  thing  it  could  ever  be 
suspected  of,  however  forcible  the  fling. 
However,  I  did  as  I  have  said,  and  gazed 
out  into  the  inky  blackness  of  the  night. 
As  I  had  suspected,  there  was  no  one  there, 
and  I  was  at  once  convinced  that  the  dread 
ed  moment  had  come.  I  was  certain  that 
at  the  instant  of  my  turning  to  re-enter  my 
library  I  should  see  something  which  would 
make  my  brain  throb  madly  and  my  pulses 
start.  I  did  not  therefore  instantly  turn, 
but  let  the  wind  blow  the  door  to  with  a 
loud  clatter,  while  I  walked  quickly  into 
my  dining-room  and  drained  a  glass  of 
c  ^ 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

cooking-sherry  to  the  dregs.  I  do  not  in 
troduce  the  cooking -sherry  here  for  the 
purpose  of  eliciting  a  laugh  from  the  reader, 
but  in  order  to  be  faithful  to  life  as  we  live 
it.  All  our  other  sherry  had  been  used  by 
the  queen  of  the  kitchen  for  cooking  pur 
poses,  and  this  was  all  we  had  left  for  the 
table.  It  is  always  so  in  real  life,  let  critics 
say  what  they  will. 

This  clone,  I  returned  to  the  library,  and 
sustained  my  first  shock.  The  unexpected 
had  happened.  There  was  still  no  one 
there.  Surely  this  ghost  was  an  original, 
and  I  began  to  be  interested. 

"  Perhaps  he  is  a  modest  ghost,"  I 
thought,  "  and  is  a  little  shy  about  mani 
festing  his  presence.  That,  indeed,  would 
be  original,  seeing  how  bold  the  spectres 
of  commerce  usually  are,  intruding  them 
selves  always  upon  the  privacy  of  those  who 
are  not  at  all  minded  to  receive  them." 

Confident  that  something  would  happen, 
and  speedily  at  that,  I  sat  down  to  wait, 
lighting  a  cigar  for  company  ;  for  burning 
gas-logs  are  not  as  sociable  as  their  hissing, 
spluttering  originals,  the  genuine  logs,  in  a 
34 


"I    DRAINED    A    GLASS    OF    COOKING-SHERRY    TO 

THE  DREGS" 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

state  of  ignition.  Several  times  I  started 
up  nervously,  feeling  as  if  there  was  some 
thing  standing  behind  me  about  to  place  a 
clammy  hand  upon  my  shoulder,  and  as 
many  times  did  I  resume  my  attitude  of 
comfort,  disappointed.  Once  I  seemed  to 
see  a  minute  spirit  floating  in  the  air  before 
me,  but  investigation  showed  that  it  was 
nothing  more  than  the  fanciful  curling  of 
the  clouds  of  smoke  I  had  blown  from  my 
lips.  An  hour  passed  and  nothing  oc 
curred,  save  that  my  heart  from  throbbing 
took  to  leaping  in  a  fashion  which  filled  me 
with  concern.  A  few  minutes  later,  how 
ever,  I  heard  a  strange  sound  at  the  win 
dow,  and  my  leaping  heart  stood  still.  The 
strain  upon  my  tense  nerves  was  becoming 
unbearable. 

"  At  last !"  I  whispered  to  myself,  hoarse 
ly,  drawing  a  deep  breath,  and  pushing  with 
all  my  force  into  the  soft  upholstered  back 
of  my  chair.  Then  I  leaned  forward  and 
watched  the  window,  momentarily  expect 
ing  to  see  it  raised  by  unseen  hands ;  but 
it  never  budged.  Then  I  watched  the  glass 
anxiously,  half  hoping,  half  fearing  to  see 
35 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

something    pass    through    it ;    but   nothing 
came,  and  I  began  to  get  irritable. 

I  looked  at  my  watch,  and  saw  that  it  was 
half-past  one  o'clock. 

"  Hang  you !"  I  cried,  "  whatever  you 
are,  why  don't  you  appear,  and  be  done 
with  it?  The  idea  of  keeping  a  man  up 
until  this  hour  of  the  night  !" 

Then  I  listened  for  a  reply;  but  there 
•was  none. 

"What  do  you  take  me  for?1'  I  contin 
ued,  querulously.  "  Do  you  suppose  I  have 
nothing  else  to  do  but  to  wait  upon  your 
majesty's  pleasure  ?  Surely,  with  all  the 
time  you've  taken  to  make  your  debut,  you 
must  be  something  of  unusual  horror." 

Again  there  was  no  answer,  and  I  decided 
that  petulance  was  of  no  avail.  Some  other 
tack  was  necessary,  and  I  decided  to  appeal 
to  his  sympathies  — granting  that  ghosts 
have  sympathies  to  appeal  to,  and  I  have 
met  some  who  were  so  human  in  this  re 
spect  that  I  have  found  it  hard  to  believe 
that  they  were  truly  ghosts. 

"  I  say,  old  chap,"  I  said,  as  genially  as 
I   could,  considering  the  situation — I  was 
36 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

nervous,  and  the  amount  of  gas  consumed 
by  the  logs  was  beginning  to  bring  up  vi 
sions  of  bankruptcy  before  my  eyes — "  hurry 
up  and  begin  your  haunting — there's  a  good 
fellow.  I'm  a  father — please  remember  that 
— and  this  is  Christmas  Eve.  The  children 
will  be  up  in  about  three  hours,  and  if  you've 
ever  been  a  parent  yourself  you  know  what 
that  means.  I  must  have  some  rest,  so 
come  along  and  show  yourself,  like  the  good 
spectre  you  are,  and  let  me  go  to  bed." 

I  think  myself  it  was  a  very  moving  ad 
dress,  but  it  helped  me  not  a  jot.  The 
thing  must  have  had  a  heart  of  stone,  for 
it  never  made  answer. 

"What?"  said  I,  pretending  to  think  it 
had  spoken  and  I  had  not  heard  distinctly ; 
but  the  visitant  was  not  to  be  caught  nap 
ping,  even  though  I  had  good  reason  to 
believe  that  he  had  fallen  asleep.  He, 
she,  or  it,  whatever  it  was,  maintained  a 
silence  as  deep  as  it  was  aggravating.  I 
smoked  furiously  on  to  restrain  my  grow 
ing  wrath.  Then  it  occurred  to  me  that 
the  thing  might  have  some  pride,  and  I  re 
solved  to  work  on  that. 
37 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

"  Of  course  I  should  like  to  write  you 
up,"  I  said,  with  a  sly  wink  at  myself.  "  I 
imagine  you'd  attract  a  good  deal  of  atten 
tion  in  the  literary  world.  Judging  from 
the  time  it  takes  you  to  get  ready,  you  ought 
to  make  a  good  magazine  story — not  one 
of  those  comic  ghost-tales  that  can  be  dashed 
off  in  a  minute,  and  ultimately  get  published 
in  a  book  at  the  author's  expense.  You 
stir  so  little  that,  as  things  go  by  contra 
ries,  you'll  make  a  stirring  tale.  You're 
long  enough,  I  might  say,  for  a  three -vol 
ume  novel  —  but  —  ah  —  I  can't  do  you  un 
less  I  see  you.  You  must  be  seen  to  be 
appreciated.  I  can't  imagine  you,  you  know. 
Let's  see,  now,  if  I  can  guess  what  kind 
of  a  ghost  you  are.  Urn  !  You  must  be 
terrifying  in  the  extreme — you'd  make  a 
man  shiver  in  mid -August  in  mid-Africa. 
Your  eyes  are  unfathomably  green.  Your 
smile  would  drive  the  sanest  mad.  Your 
hands  are  cold  and  clammy  as  a — ah — as 
a  hot-water  bag  four  hours  after." 

And  so  I  went  on  for  ten  minutes,  prais 
ing  him  up  to  the  skies,  and  ending  up  with 
a  pathetic  appeal  that  he  should  manifest 
33 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

his  presence.  It  may  be  that  I  puffed 
him  up  so  that  he  burst,  but,  however  that 
may  be,  he  would  not  condescend  to  reply, 
and  I  grew  angry  in  earnest. 

"  Very  well,"  I  said,  savagely,  jumping 
up  from  my  chair  and  turning  off  the  gas- 
log.  "  Don't !  Nobody  asked  you  to  come 
in  the  first  place,  and  nobody's  going  to 
complain  if  you  sulk  in  your  tent  like  Achil 
les.  I  don't  want  to  see  you.  I  could  fake 
up  a  better  ghost  than  you  are  anyhow- -in 
fact,  I  fancy  that's  what's  the  matter  with 
you.  You  know  what  a  miserable  specimen 
you  are — couldn't  frighten  a  mouse  if  you 
were  ten  times  as  horrible.  You're  ashamed 
to  show  yourself — and  I  don't  blame  you. 
I'd  be  that  way  too  if  I  were  you." 

I  walked  half-way  to  the  door,  momenta 
rily  expecting  to  have  him  call  me  back ;  but 
he  didn't.  I  had  to  give  him  a  parting  shot. 

"  You  probably  belong  to  a  ghost  union — 
don't  you  ?  That's  your  secret  ?  Ordered 
out  on  strike,  and  won't  do  any  haunting 
after  sundown  unless  some  other  employer 
of  unskilled  ghosts  pays  his  spooks  skilled 
wages." 

39 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

I  had  half  a  notion  that  the  word  "  spook" 
would  draw  him  out,  for  I  have  noticed  that 
ghosts  do  not  like  to  be  called  spooks  any 
more  than  negroes  like  to  be  called  "nig 
gers."  They  consider  it  vulgar.  He  never 
yielded  in  his  reserve,  however,  and  after 
locking  up  I  went  to  bed. 

For  a  time  I  could  not  sleep,  and  I  began 
to  wonder  if  I  had  been  just,  after  all.  Pos 
sibly  there  was  no  spirit  within  miles  of  me. 
The  symptoms  were  all  there,  but  might 
not  that  have  been  due  to  my  depressed 
condition— for  it  does  depress  a  writer  to 
have  one  of  his  best  veins  become  sclero 
tic — I  asked  myself,  and  finally,  as  I  went 
off  to  sleep,  I  concluded  that  I  had  been 
in  the  wrong  all  through,  and  had  imagined 
there  was  something  there  when  there  really 
was  not. 

"Very  likely  the  ringing  of  the  bell  was 
due  to  the  wind,"  I  said,  as  I  dozed  off. 
"  Of  course  it  would  take  a  very  heavy  wind 
to  blow  the  button  in,  but  then — "  and  then 
I  fell  asleep,  convinced  that  no  ghost  had 
ventured  within  a  mile  of  me  that  night. 
But  when  morning  came  I  was  undeceived. 
40 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

Something  must  have  visited  us  that  Christ 
mas  Eve,  ami  something  very  terrible ;  for 
while  I  was  dressing  for  breakfast  I  heard 
my  wife  calling  loudly  from  below. 

"  Henry !"  she  cried.  "  Please  come  down 
here  at  once." 

"  I  can't.  I'm  only  half  shaved,"  I  an 
swered. 

"  Never  mind  that,"  she  returned.  "  Come 
at  once." 

So,  with  the  lather  on  one  cheek  and  a 
cut  on  the  other,  I  went  below. 

"  What's  the  matter  ?"  I  asked. 

"  Look  at  that !"  she  said,  pointing  to  my 
grandmother's  hair-sofa,  which  stood  in  the 
hall  just  outside  of  my  library  door. 

It  had  been  black  when  we  last  saw  it, 
but  as  I  looked  I  saw  that  a  great  change 
had  come  over  it. 

//  had  turned  white  in  a  single  night ! 

Now  I  can't  account  for  this  strange  in 
cident,  nor  can  any  one  else,  and  I  do  not 
intend  to  try.  It  is  too  awful  a  mystery  for 
me  to  attempt  to  penetrate,  but  the  sofa  is 
there  in  proof  of  all  that  I  have  said  con 
cerning  it,  and  any  one  who  desires  can  call 
41 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

and  see  it  at  any  time.  It  is  not  necessary 
for  them  to  see  me ;  they  need  only  ask  to 
see  the  sofa,  and  it  will  be  shown. 

We  have  had  it  removed  from  the  hall 
to  the  white-and-gold  parlor,  for  we  cannot 
bear  to  have  it  stand  in  any  of  the  rooms 
we  use. 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  BARNEY 
O'ROURKE 

A  VERY  irritating  thing  has  happened. 
My  hired  man,  a  certain  Barney  O'Rourke, 
an  American  citizen  of  much  political  in 
fluence,  a  good  gardener,  and,  according  to 
his  lights,  a  gentleman,  has  got  very  much 
the  best  of  me,  and  all  because  of  certain 
effusions  which  from  time  to  time  have 
emanated  from  my  pen.  It  is  not  often 
that  one's  literary  chickens  come  home  to 
roost  in  such  a  vengeful  fashion  as  some 
of  mine  have  recently  clone,  and  I  have  no 
doubt  that  as  this  story  progresses  he  who 
reads  will  find  much  sympathy  for  me  rising 
up  in  his  breast.  As  the  matter  stands,  I 
am  torn  with  conflicting  emotions.  I  am 
very  fond  of  Barney,  and  I  have  always 
found  him  truthful  hitherto,  but  exactly 
what  to  believe  now  I  hardly  know. 
43 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

The  main  thing  to  bring  my  present 
trouble  upon  me,  I  am  forced  to  believe, 
is  the  fact  that  my  house  has  been  in  the 
past,  and  may  possibly  still  be,  haunted. 
Why  my  house  should  be  haunted  at  all 
I  do  not  know,  for  it  has  never  been  the 
scene  of  any  tragedy  that  I  am  aware  of. 
I  built  it  myself,  and  it  is  paid  for.  So  far 
as  I  am  aware,  nothing  awful  of  a  material 
nature  has  ever  happened  within  its  walls, 
and  yet  it  appears  to  be,  for  the  present 
at  any  rate,  a  sort  of  club-house  for  incon 
siderate  if  not  strictly  horrid  things,  which 
is  a  most  unfair  dispensation  of  the  fates, 
for  I  have  not  deserved  it.  If  I  were  in 
any  sense  a  Bluebeard,  and  spent  my  days 
cutting  ladies'  throats  as  a  pastime;  if  I 
had  a  pleasing  habit  of  inviting  friends  up 
from  town  over  Sunday,  and  dropping  them 
into  oubliettes  connecting  my  library  with 
dark,  dank,  and  snaky  subterranean  dun 
geons  ;  if  guests  who  dine  at  my  house 
came  with  a  feeling  that  the  chances  were 
they  would  never  return  to  their  families 
alive  —  it  might  be  different.  I  shouldn't 
and  couldn't  blame  a  house  for  being  haunt- 
44 


' 

fSfill;*S> 


IT    IS    NOT    OFTEN    THAT    ONE'S    LITERARY    CHICKENS 
COME    HOME    TO    ROOST" 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

ed  if  it  were  the  dwelling-place  of  a  blood 
thirsty  ruffian  such  as  I  have  indicated,  but 
that  is  just  what  it  is  not.  It  is  not  the 
home  of  a  lover  of  fearful  crimes.  I  would 
not  walk  ten  feet  for  the  pleasure  of  killing 
any  man,  no  matter  who  he  is.  On  the  con 
trary,  I  would  walk  twenty  feet  to  avoid 
doing  it,  if  the  emergency  should  ever  arise, 
aye,  even  if  it  were  that  fiend  who  sits  next 
me  at  the  opera  and  hums  the  opera  through 
from  beginning  to  end.  There  have  been 
times,  I  must  confess,  when  i  have  wished 
I  might  have  had  the  oubliettes  to  which  I 
have  referred  constructed  beneath  my  li 
brary  and  leading  to  the  coal -bins  or  to 
some  long-forgotten  well,  but  that  was  two 
or  three  years  ago,  when  I  was  in  politics 
for  a  brief  period,  and  delegations  of  will 
ing  and  thirsty  voters  were  daily  and  night 
ly  swarming  in  through  every  one  of  the 
sixteen  doors  on  the  ground -floor  of  my 
house,  which  my  architect,  in  a  riotous  mo 
ment,  smuggled  into  the  plans  in  the  guise 
of  "  French  windows."  I  shouldn't  have 
minded  then  if  the  earth  had  opened  up 
and  swallowed  my  whole  party,  so  long  as 
45 


GHOSTS    1     HAVE    MET 

I  did  not  have  to  go  with  them,  but  under 
such  provocation  as  I  had  I  do  not  feel 
that  my  residence  is  justified  in  being  haunt 
ed  after  its  present  fashion  because  such  a 
notion  entered  my  mind.  We  cannot  help 
our  thoughts,  much  less  our  notions,  and 
punishment  for  that  which  we  cannot  help 
is  not  in  strict  accord  with  latter-day  ideas 
of  justice.  It  may  occur  to  some  hypercriti 
cal  person  to  suggest  that  the  English  lan 
guage  has  frequently  been  murdered  in  my 
den,  and  that  it  is  its  horrid  corse  which  is 
playing  havoc  at  my  home,  crying  out  to 
heaven  and  flaunting  its  bloody  wounds  in 
the  face  of  my  conscience,  but  I  can  pass 
such  an  aspersion  as  that  by  with  contempt 
uous  silence,  for  even  if  it  were  true  it  could 
not  be  set  down  as  wilful  assassination  on 
my  part,  since  no  sane  person  who  needs  a 
language  as  much  as  I  do  would  ever  in 
cold  blood  kill  any  one  of  the  many  that 
lie  about  us.  Furthermore,  the  English  lan 
guage  is  not  dead.  It  may  not  be  met  with 
often  in  these  days,  but  it  is  still  encoun 
tered  with  sufficient  frequency  in  the  works 
of  Henry  James  and  Miss  Libby  to  prove 
46 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

that  it  still  lives ;  and  I  am  told  that  one  or 
two  members  of  our  consular  service  abroad 
can  speak  it — though  as  for  this  I  cannot 
write  with  certainty,  for  I  have  never  en 
countered  one  of  these  exceptions  to  the 
general  rule. 

The  episode  with  which  this  narrative  has 
to  deal  is  interesting  in  some  ways,  though 
I  doubt  not  some  readers  will  prove  scepti 
cal  as  to  its  realism.  There  are  suspicious 
minds  in  the  world,  and  with  these  every 
man  who  writes  of  truth  must  reckon.  To 
such  I  have  only  to  say  that  it  is  my  desire 
and  intention  to  tell  the  truth  as  simply  as 
it  can  be  told  by  James,  and  as  truthfully 
as  Sylvanus  Cobb  ever  wrote  ! 

Now,  then,  the  facts  of  my  story  are 
these  : 

In  the  latter  part  of  last  July,  expecting 
a  meeting  of  friends  at  my  house  in  con 
nection  with  a  question  of  the  good  govern 
ment  of  the  city  in  which  I  honestly  try  to 
pay  my  taxes,  I  ordered  one  hundred  cigars 
to  be  delivered  at  my  residence.  I  ordered 
several  other  things  at  the  same  time,  but 
they  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  this 
47 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE     MET 

story,  because  they  were  all — every  single 
bottle  of  them — consumed  at  the  meeting; 
but  of  the  cigars,  about  which  the  strange 
facts  of  my  story  cluster,  at  the  close  of  the 
meeting  a  goodly  two  dozen  remained.  This 
is  surprising,  considering  that  there  were 
quite  .six  of  us  present,  but  it  is  true.  Twenty- 
four  by  actual  count  remained  when  the 
last  guest  left  me.  The  next  morning  I 
and  my  family  took  our  departure  for  a 
month's  rest  in  the  mountains.  In  the 
hurry  of  leaving  home,  and  the  worry  of 
looking  after  three  children  and  four  times 
as  many  trunks,  I  neglected  to  include  the 
cigars  in  my  impedimenta,  leaving  them  in 
the  opened  box  upon  my  library  table.  It 
was  careless  of  me,  no  doubt,  but  it  was 
an  important  incident,  as  the  sequel  shows. 
The  incidents  of  the  stay  in  the  hills  were 
commonplace,  but  during  my  absence  from 
home  strange  things  were  going  on  there, 
as  I  learned  upon  my  return. 

The  place  had  been  left  in  charge  of  Bar 
ney  O'Rourke,  who,   upon    my  arrival,  as 
sured  me  that  everything  was  all  right,  and 
I  thanked  and  paid  him. 
48 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

"Wait  a  minute,  Barney,"  I  said,  as  he 
turned  to  leave  me ;  "  I've  got  a  cigar  for 
you."  I  may  mention  incidentally  that  in 
the  past  I  had  kept  Barney  on  very  good 
terms  with  his  work  by  treating  him  in  a 
friendly,  sociable  way,  but,  to  my  great  sur 
prise,  upon  this  occasion  he  declined  ad 
vances. 

His  face  flushed  very  red  as  he  observed 
that  he  had  given  up  smoking. 

"  Well,  wait  a  minute,  anyhow,"  said  I. 
"  There  are  one  or  two  things  I  want  to 
speak  to  you  about."  And  I  went  to  the 
table  to  get  a  cigar  for  myself. 

The  box  was  empty  ! 

Instantly  the  suspicion  which  has  doubt 
less  flashed  through  the  mind  of  the  reader 
flashed  through  my  own — Barney  had  been 
tempted,  and  had  fallen.  I  recalled  his 
blush,  and  on  the  moment  realized  that 
in  all  my  vast  experience  with  hired  men 
in  the  past  I  had  never  seen  one  blush 
before.  The  case  was  clear.  My  cigars 
had  gone  to  help  Barney  through  the  hot 
summer. 

"  Well,  I  declare !"  I  cried,  turning  sud- 
D  49 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE    MET 

denly  upon  him.  "  I  left  a  lot  of  cigars 
here  when  I  went  away,  Barney." 

"  I  know  ye  did,  sorr,"  said  Barney,  who 
had  now  grown  white  and  rigid.  "  I  saw 
them  meself,  sorr.  There  was  twinty-foor 
of  'em." 

"  You  counted  them,  eh  ?''  I  asked,  with 
an  elevation  of  my  eyebrows  which  to  those 
who  know  me  conveys  the  idea  of  suspicion. 

"  I  did,  sorr.  In  your  absence  I  was  re 
sponsible  for  everything  here,  and  the  morn- 
in'  ye  wint  awaa  I  took  a  quick  invintery, 
sorr,  of  the  removables,"  he  answered,  fin 
gering  his  cap  nervously.  "That's  how  it 
was,  sorr,  and  thim  twinty-foor  segyars  was 
lyin'  there  in  the  box  forninst  me  eyes." 

"And  how  do  you  account  for  the  re 
moval  of  these  removables,  as  you  call  them, 
Barney?"  I  asked,  looking  coldly  at  him. 
He  saw  he  was  under  suspicion,  and  he 
winced,  but  pulled  himself  together  in  an 
instant. 

"  I  expected  the  question,  sorr,"  he  said, 
calmly,  "and  I  have  me  answer  ready. 
Thim  segyars  was  shmoked,  sorr." 

"  Doubtless, "said  I,  with  an  ill-suppressed 
50 


AND    SOME     OTHERS 

sneer.     "  And  by  whom  ?    Cats  ?"    I  added, 
with  a  contemptuous  shrug  of  my  shoulders. 

His  answer  overpowered  me,  it  was  so 
simple,  direct,  and  unexpected. 

"  Shpooks,"  he  replied,  laconically. 

I  gasped  in  astonishment,  and  sat  down.) 
My  knees  simply  collapsed  under  me,  and 
I  could  no  more  have  continued  to  stand 
up  than  fly. 

"What?"  I  cried,  as  soon  as  I  had  re 
covered  sufficiently  to  gasp  out  the  word. 

"  Shpooks,"  replied  Barney.  "  Ut  came 
about  like  this,  sorr.  It  was  the  Froiday 
two  wakes  afther  you  left,  I  became  un'asy 
loike  along  about  nine  o'clock  in  the  ave- 
nin',  and  I  t'ought  I'd  come  around  here 
and  see  if  everything  was  sthraight.  Me 
wife  sez  ut's  foolish  of  me,  sorr,  and  I  sez 
maybe  so,  but  I  can't  get  ut  out  o'  me  head 
thot  somet'ing's  wrong. 

"  '  Ye  locked  everyt'ing  up  safe  whin  ye 
left  ?'  sez  she. 

"  '  I  always  does,'  sez  I. 

"  '  Thin  ut's  a  phwhim,'  sez  she. 

"  '  No,'  sez  I.  '  Ut's  a  sinsation.  If  ut 
was  a  phwim,  ut  'd  be  youse  as  would  hov' 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE    MET 

it';  that's  what  I  sez,  sevarely  loike,  sorr, 
and  out  I  shtarts.  It  was  tin  o'clock  whin 
I  got  here.  The  noight  was  dark  and  blow- 
in'  loike  March,  rainin'  and  t'underin'  till 
ye  couldn't  hear  yourself  t'ink. 

"  I  walked  down  the  walk,  sorr,  an'  bar- 
rin'  the  t'under  everyt'ing  was  quiet.  I 
troid  the  dures.  All  toight  as  a  politician. 
Shtill,  t'inks  I,  I'll  go  insoide.  Quiet  as  a 
lamb  ut  was,  sorr;  but  on  a  suddent,  as  I 
was  about  to  go  back  home  again,  I  shmelt 
shmoke !" 

"  Fire  ?"  I  cried,  excitedly. 

"  I  said  shmoke,  sorr,"  said  Barney,  whose 
calmness  was  now  beautiful  to  look  upon, 
he  was  so  serenely  confident  of  his  position. 

"  Doesn't  smoke  involve  a  fire  ?"  I  de 
manded. 

"  Sometimes,"  said  Barney.  "  I  t'ought  ye 
meant  a  conflagrashun,  sorr.  The  shmoke 
I  shmelt  was  segyars." 

"  Ah,"  I  observed.  "  I  am  glad  you  are 
coming  to  the  point.  Go  on.  There  is  a 
difference." 

"  There  is  thot,"  said  Barney,  pleasantly, 
he  was  getting  along  so  swimmingly.  "  This 
52 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

shmoke,  as  I  say,  was  segyar  shmoke,  so  I 
gropes  me  way  cautious  loike  up  the  back 
sthairs  and  listens  by  the  library  dure.  All 
quiet  as  a  lamb.  Thin,  bold  loike,  I  shteps 
into  the  room,  and  nearly  drops  wid  the 
shcare  I  have  on  me  in  a  minute.  The 
room  was  dark  as  a  b'aver  hat,  sorr,  but  in 
different  shpots  ranged  round  in  the  chairs 
was  six  little  red  balls  of  foire  !" 

"  Barney  !"  I  cried. 

"  Thrue,  sorr,"  said  he.  "And  tobacky 
shmoke  rollin'  out  till  you'd  'a'  t'ought  there 
was  a  foire  in  a  segyar  store !  Ut  queered 
me,  sorr,  for  a  minute,  and  me  impulse  is 
to  run ;  but  I  gets  me  courage  up,  springs 
across  the  room,  touches  the  electhric  but 
ton,  an'  bzt!  every  gas-jet  on  the  flure 
loights  up !" 

"  That  was  rash,  Barney,"  I  put  in,  sar 
castically. 

"  It  was  in  your  intherest,  sorr,"  said  he, 
impressively. 

"And  you  saw  what?"  I  queried,  grow 
ing  very  impatient. 

"  What  I  hope  niver  to  see  again,  sorr," 
said  Barney,  compressing  his  lips  solemnly. 
53 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE     MET 

"  S/'x  impty  chairs,  sorr,  wid  six  segyars  as 
hoigh  up  from  the  flure  as  a  man's  mout1, 
puffin'  and  a-blowin'  out  shmoke  loike  a 
chimbley!  An'  ivery  oncet  in  a  whoile  the 
segyars  would  go  down  kind  of  an'  be 
tapped  loike  as  if  wid  a  finger  of  a  shmoker, 
and  the  ashes  would  fall  off  onto  the  flure  !" 

"  Well  ?"  said  I.     "  Go  on.     What  next  ?" 

"  I  \vanted  to  run  awaa,  sorr,  but  I  shtood 
rutted  to  the  shpot  wid  th'  surproise  I  had 
on  me,  until  foinally  ivery  segyar  was  burnt 
to  a  shtub  and  trun  into  the  foireplace, 
where  I  found  'em  the  nixt  mornin'  when  I 
came  to  clane  up,  provin'  ut  wasn't  ony 
dhrame  I'd  been  havinV 

I  arose  from  my  chair  and  paced  the  room 
for  two  or  three  minutes,  wondering  what  I 
could  say.  Of  course  the  man  was  lying,  I 
thought.  Then  I  pulled  myself  together. 

"Barney,"  I  said,  severely,  "what's  the 
use  ?  Do  you  expect  me  to  believe  any 
such  cock-and-bull  story  as  that  ?" 

"  No,  sorr,"  said  he.  "  But  thim's  the 
facts." 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  this  house  of 
mine  is  haunted  ?"  I  cried. 
54 


AND    SOME     OTHERS 

"  I  don't  know/'  said  Barney,  quietly. 
"  I  didn't  t'ink  so  before." 

"Before?    Before  what ?    When  ?"  I  asked. 

"  Whin  you  was  writin'  shtories  about  ut, 
sorr,"  said  Barney,  respectfully.  "  You've 
had  a  black  horse-hair  sofy  turn  white  in  a 
single  noight,  sorr,  for  the  soight  of  horror 
ut's  witnessed.  You've  had  the  hair  of  your 
own  head  shtand  on  ind  loike  tinpenny 
nails  at  what  you've  seen  here  in  this  very 
room,  yourself,  sorr.  You've  had  ghosts 
doin'  all  sorts  of  t'ings  in  the  shtories  you've 
been  writin'  for  years,  and  youve  always 
swore  they  was  thnte,  sorr.  I  didn't  believe 
'em  when  I  read  'em,  but  whin  I  see  thim 
segyars  bein'  shmoked  up  before  me  eyes 
by  invishible  t'ings,  1  sez  to  rneself,  sez  I, 
the  boss  ain't  such  a  dommed  loiar  afther 
all.  I've  follycl  your  writin',  sorr,  very  care 
ful  and  close  loike  ;  an  I  don't  see  how, 
afther  the  tales  you've  told  about  your  own 
experiences  right  here,  you  can  say  con- 
sishtently  that  this  wan  o'  mine  ain't  so  !" 

"  But  why,  Barney,"  I  asked,  to  confuse 
him,    "when    a    thing    like   this   happened, 
didn't  you  write  and  tell  me?'' 
55 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE    MET 

Barney  chuckled  as  only  one  of  his  spe 
cies  can  chuckle. 

"Wroite  an'  tell  ye?"  he  cried.  "Be 
gorry,  sorr,  if  I  could  wroite  at  all  at  all, 
ut's  not  you  oi'd  be  wroitin'  that  tale  to, 
but  to  the  edithor  of  the  paper  that  you 
wroite  for.  A  tale  loike  that  is  wort'  tin 
dollars  to  any  man,  eshpecially  if  ut's  thrue. 
But  I  niver  learned  the  art !" 

And  with  that  Barney  left  me  over 
whelmed.  Subsequently  I  gave  him  the 
ten  dollars  which  I  think  his  story  is  worth, 
but  I  must  confess  that  I  am  in  a  dilemma. 
After  what  I  have  said  about  my  supernat 
ural  guests,  I  cannot  discharge  Barney  for 
lying,  but  I'll  be  blest  if  I  can  quite  believe 
that  his  story  is  accurate  in  every  respect. 

If  there  should  happen  to  be  among  the 
readers  of  this  tale  any  who  have  made  a 
sufficiently  close  study  of  the  habits  of  hired 
men  and  ghosts  to  be  able  to  shed  any  light 
upon  the  situation,  nothing  would  please  me 
more  than  to  hear  from  them. 

I  may  add,  in  closing,  that  Barney  has 
resumed  smoking. 


THE    EXORCISM   THAT   FAILED 

I — A    JUBILEE    EXPERIENCE 

IT  has  happened  again.  I  have  been 
haunted  once  more,  and  this  time  by  the 
most  obnoxious  spook  I  have  ever  had  the 
bliss  of  meeting.  He  is  homely,  squat,  and 
excessively  vulgar  in  his  dress  and  manner. 
I  have  met  cockneys  in  my  day,  and  some 
of  the  most  offensive  varieties  at  that,  but 
this  spook  absolutely  outcocknifies  them  all, 
and  the  worst  of  it  is  I  can't  seem  to  rid 
myself  of  him.  He  has  pursued  me  like  an 
avenging  angel  for  quite  six  months,  and 
every  plan  of  exorcism  that  I  have  tried  so 
far  has  failed,  including  the  receipt  given 
me  by  my  friend  Peters,  who,  next  to  my 
self,  knows  more  about  ghosts  that  any  man 
living.  It  was  in  London  that  I  first  en 
countered  the  vulgar  little  creature  who  has 
57 


GHOSTS     1     HAVE     MET 

made  my  life  a  sore  trial  ever  since,  and 
with  whom  I  am  still  coping  to  the  best  of 
my  powers. 

Starting  out  early  in  the  morning  of  June 
21,  last  summer,  to  witness  the  pageant  of 
her  Majesty  Queen  Victoria's  Diamond  Ju 
bilee,  I  secured  a  good  place  on  the  corner 
of  Northumberland  Avenue  and  Trafalgar 
Square.  There  were  two  rows  of  people 
ahead  of  me,  but  I  did  not  mind  that.  Those 
directly  before  me  were  short,  and  I  could 
easily  see  over  their  heads,  and,  further 
more,  I  was  protected  from  the  police,  who 
in  London  are  the  most  dangerous  people 
I  have  ever  encountered,  not  having  the 
genial  ways  of  the  Irish  bobbies  who  keep 
the  New  York  crowds  smiling;  who,  when 
you  are  pushed  into  the  line  of  march,  mere 
ly  punch  you  in  a  ticklish  spot  with  the  end 
of  their  clubs,  instead  of  smashing  your 
hair  down  into  your  larynx  with  their  sticks, 
as  do  their  London  prototypes. 

It  was  very  comforting  to  me,  having  wit 
nessed  the  pageant  of  1887,  when  the  Queen 
celebrated  her  fiftieth  anniversary  as  a  po 
tentate,  and  thereby  learned  the  English 
53 


AND    SOME     OTHERS 

police  system  of  dealing  with  crowds,  to 
know  that  there  were  at  least  two  rows  of 
heads  to  be  split  open  before  my  turn  came, 
and  I  had  formed  the  good  resolution  to 
depart  as  so-on  as  the  first  row  had  been 
thus  treated,  whether  I  missed  seeing  the 
procession  or  not. 

I  had  not  been  long  at  my  post  when  the 
crowds  concentrating  on  the  line  of  march, 
coming  up  the  avenue  from  the  Embank 
ment,  began  to  shove  intolerably  from  the 
rear,  and  it  was  as  much  as  I  could  do  to 
keep  my  place,  particularly  in  view  of  the 
fact  that  the  undersized  cockney  who  stood 
in  front  of  me  appeared  to  offer  no  resist 
ance  to  the  pressure  of  my  waistcoat  against 
his  narrow  little  back.  It  seemed  strange 
that  it  should  be  so,  but  I  appeared,  de 
spite  his  presence,  to  have  nothing  of  a  ma 
terial  nature  ahead  of  me,  and  I  found 
myself  bent  at  an  angle  of  seventy-five  de 
grees,  my  feet  firmly  planted  before  me  like 
those  of  a  balky  horse,  restraining  the  on 
ward  tendency  of  the  mob  back  of  me. 

Strong  as  I  am,  however,  and  stubborn, 
I  am  not  a  stone  wall  ten  feet  thick  at  the 
59 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE     MET 

base,  and  the  pressure  brought  to  bear  upon 
my  poor  self  was  soon  too  great  for  my 
strength,  and  I  gradually  encroached  upon 
my  unresisting  friend.  He  turned  and  hurled 
a  few  remarks  at  me  that  are  not  printable, 
yet  he  was  of  no  more  assistance  in  with 
standing  the  pressure  than  a  marrowfat  pea 
well  cooked  would  have  been. 

"  I'm  sorry,"  I  said,  apologetically.  "  but 
I  can't  help  it.  If  these  policemen  would 
run  around  to  the  rear  and  massacre  some 
of  the  populace  who  are  pushing  me,  I 
shouldn't  have  to  shove  you." 

"  Well,  all  I've  got  to  say,"  he  retorted, 
"  is  that  if  you  don't  keep  your  carcass  out 
of  my  ribs  I'll  haunt  you  to  your  dying  day." 

"  If  you'd  only  put  up  a  little  backbone 
yourself  you'd  make  it  easier  for  me,"  I 
replied,  quite  hotly.  "  What  are  you,  any 
how,  a  jelly-fish  or  an  India-rubber  man?" 
He  hadn't  time  to  answer,  for  just  as  I 
spoke  an  irresistible  shove  from  the  crowd 
pushed  me  slap  up  against  the  man  in  the 
front  row,  and  I  was  appalled  to  find  the 
little  fellow  between  us  bulging  out  on  both 
sides  of  me,  crushed  longitudinally  from  top 
60 


"  '  L-LUL-LET   ME   OUT  !'    HE   GASPED  " 


AND    SOME     OTHERS 

to  toe,  so  that  he  resembled  a  paper  doll 
before  the  crease  is  removed  from  its  mid 
dle,  three-quarters  open.  "  Great  heavens  !" 
I  muttered.  "  What  have  I  struck  ?" 

"  L-lul-let  me  out !"  he  gasped.  "  Don't 
you  see  you  are  squ-queezing  my  figure  out 
of  shape  ?  Get  bub-back,  blank  it !" 

"  I  can't,"  I  panted.     "  I'm  sorry,  but— 

"  Sorry  be  hanged  !"  he  roared.  "  This 
is  my  place,  you  idiot — 

This  was  too  much  for  me,  and  in  my 
inability  to  kick  him  with  my  foot  I  did  it 
with  my  knee,  and  then,  if  I  had  not  been 
excited,  I  should  have  learned  the  unhappy 
truth.  My  knee  went  straight  through  him 
and  shoved  the  man  ahead  into  the  coat- 
tails  of  the  bobbie  in  front.  It  was  fortu 
nate  for  me  that  it  happened  as  it  did,  for 
the  front-row  man  was  wrathful  enough  to 
have  struck  me  ;  but  the  police  took  care 
of  him  ;  and  as  he  was  carried  away  on  a 
stretcher,  the  little  jelly-fish  came  back  into 
his  normal  proportions,  like  an  inflated  In 
dia-rubber  toy. 

"What   the  deuce   are  you,  anyhow?"   I 
cried,  aghast  at  the  spectacle. 
6 1 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

"  You'll  find  out  before  you  are  a  year 
older  !"  he  wrathfully  answered.  "  I'll  show 
you  a  shoving  trick  or  two  that  you  won't 
like,  you  blooming  Yank  !" 

It  made  me  excessively  angry  to  be  called 
a  blooming  Yank.  I  am  a  Yankee,  and  I 
have  been  known  to  bloom,  but  I  can't 
stand  having  a  low- class  Britisher  apply 
that  term  to  me  as  if  it  were  an  opprobrious 
thing  to  be,  so  I  tried  once  more  to  kick 
him  with  my  knee.  Again  my  knee  passed 
through  him,  and  this  time  took  the  police 
man  himself  in  the  vicinity  of  his  pistol- 
pocket.  The  irate  officer  turned  quickly, 
raised  his  club,  and  struck  viciously,  not 
at  the  little  creature,  but  at  me.  He  didn't 
seem  to  see  the  jelly-fish.  And  then  the 
horrid  truth  flashed  across  my  mind.  The 
thing  in  front  of  me  was  a  ghost — a  misera 
ble  relic  of  some  bygone  pageant,  and  visi 
ble  only  to  myself,  who  have  an  eye  to  that 
sort  of  thing.  Luckily  the  bobbie  missed 
his  stroke,  and  as  I  apologized,  telling  him 
I  had  St.  Vitus's  dance  and  could  not  con 
trol  my  unhappy  leg,  accompanying  the 
apology  with  a  half  sovereign  — both  of 


Jb' 

62 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

which  were  accepted — peace  reigned,  and 
I  shortly  had  the  bliss  of  seeing  the  whole 
sovereign  ride  by — that  is,  I  was  told  that 
the  lady  behind  the  parasol,  which  obscured 
everything  but  her  elbow,  was  her  Majesty 
the  Queen. 

Nothing  more  of  interest  happened  be 
tween  this  and  the  end  of  the  procession, 
although  the  little  spook  in  front  occasion 
ally  turned  and  paid  me  a  compliment  which 
would  have  cost  any  material  creature  his 
life.  But  that  night  something  of  impor 
tance  did  happen,  and  it  has  been  going  on 
ever  since.  The  unlovely  creature  turned 
up  in  my  lodgings  just  as  I  was  about  to 
retire,  and  talked  in  his  rasping  voice  until 
long  after  four  o'clock.  I  ordered  him  out, 
and  he  declined  to  go.  I  struck  at  him,  but 
it  was  like  hitting  smoke. 

"  All  right,"  said  I,  putting  on  my  clothes. 
"  If  you  won't  get  out,  I  will." 

"  That's  exactly  what  I  intended  you  to 
do,"  he  said.  "  How  do  you  like  being 
shoved,  eh?  Yesterday  was  the  2ist  of 
June.  I  shall  keep  shoving  you  along,  even 
as  you  shoved  me,  for  exactly  one  year." 
63 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

"  Humph  !"  I  retorted.  "  You  called  me 
a  blooming  Yank  yesterday.  I  am.  I  shall 
soon  be  out  of  your  reach  in  the  great  and 
glorious  United  States." 

"  Oh,  as  for  that,"  he  answered,  calmly, 
"  I  can  go  to  the  United  States.  There 
are  steamers  in  great  plenty.  I  could  even 
get  myself  blown  across  on  a  gale,  if  I 
wanted  to — only  gales  are  not  always  con 
venient.  Some  of  'em  don't  go  all  the 
way  through,  and  connections  are  hard 
to  make.  A  gale  I  was  riding  on  once 
stopped  in  mid -ocean,  and  I  had  to  wait 
a  week  before  another  came  along,  and 
it  landed  me  in  Africa  instead  of  at  New 
York." 

"  Got  aboard  the  wrong  gale,  eh  ?"  said 
I,  with  a  laugh. 

"  Yes,"  he  answered. 

"  Didn't  you  drown  ?"  I  cried,  somewhat 
interested. 

"  Idiot !"   he  retorted.     "  Drown  ?     How 
could  I  ?    You  can't  drown  a  ghost !" 

"  See  here,"  said  I,  "  if  you  call  me  an 
idiot  again,  I'll— I'll— 

"What?"  he  put  in,  with  a  grin.     "Now 
64 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

just  what  will  you  do?  You're  clever,  but 
I'm  a  ghost!" 

"  You  wait  and  see  !"  said  I,  rushing  an 
grily  from  the  room.  It  was  a  very  weak 
retort,  and  I  frankly  admit  that  I  am 
ashamed  of  it,  but  it  was  the  best  I  had  at 
hand  at  the  moment.  My  stock  of  repartee, 
like  most  men's  vitality,  is  at  its  lowest 
ebb  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

For  three  or  four  hours  I  wandered  aim 
lessly  about  the  city,  and  then  returned  to 
my  room,  and  found  it  deserted ;  but  in 
the  course  of  my  peregrinations  I  had  ac 
quired  a  most  consuming  appetite.  Usually 
I  eat  very  little  breakfast,  but  this  morning 
nothing  short  of  a  sixteen -course  dinner 
could  satisfy  my  ravening;  so  instead  of 
eating  my  modest  boiled  egg,  I  sought  the 
Savoy,  and  at  nine  o'clock  entered  the 
breakfast-room  of  that  highly  favored  cara 
vansary.  Imagine  my  delight,  upon  enter 
ing,  to  see,  sitting  near  one  of  the  windows, 
my  newly  made  acquaintances  of  the  steam 
er,  the  Travises  of  Boston,  Miss  Travis  look 
ing  more  beautiful  than  ever  and  quite  as 
haughty,  by  whom  I  was  invited  to  join 

E      '  65 


GHOSTS     I     HAVE     MET 

them.  I  accepted  with  alacrity,  and  was 
just  about  to  partake  of  a  particularly  nice 
melon  when  who  should  walk  in  but  that 
vulgar  little  spectre,  hat  jauntily  placed  on 
one  side  of  his  head,  check-patterned  trou 
sers  loud  enough  to  wake  the  dead,  and  a 
green  plaid  vest  about  his  middle  that 
would  be  an  indictable  offence  even  on  an 
American  golf  links. 

"Thank. Heaven  they  can't  see  the  brute !" 
I  muttered  as  he  approached. 

"  Hullo,  old  chappie  !"  he  cried,  slapping 
me  on  my  back.  "  Introduce  me  to  your 
charming  friends,"  and  with  this  he  gave  a 
horrible  low-born  smirk  at  Miss  Travis,  to 
whom,  to  my  infinite  sorrow,  by  some  ac 
cursed  miracle,  he  appeared  as  plainly  visi 
ble  as  he  was  to  me. 

"  Really/'  said  Mrs.  Travis,  turning  cold 
ly  to  me,  "  we — we  can't,  you  know — we — 
Come,  Eleanor.  We  will  leave  this  gentle 
man  with  his  friend,  and  have  our  breakfast 
sent  to  our  rooms." 

And  with  that  they  rose  up  and  scornfully 
departed.  The  creature  then  sat  down  in  Miss 
Travis's  chair  and  began  to  devour  her  roll. 
66 


AND    SOME     OTHERS 

"  See  here,"  I  cried,  finally,  "  what  the 
devil  do  you  mean  ?" 

"  Shove  number  two,"  he  replied,  with 
his  unholy  smirk.  "  Very  successful,  eh  ? 
Well,  just  you  wait  for  number  three.  It 
will  be  what  you  Americans  call  a  corker. 
By-bye." 

And  with  that  he  vanished,  just  in  time 
to  spare  me  the  humiliation  of  shying  a  pot 
of  coffee  at  his  head.  Of  course  my  appe 
tite  vanished  with  him,  and  my  main  duty 
now  seemed  to  be  to  seek  out  the  Travises 
and  explain  ;  so  leaving  the  balance  of  my 
breakfast  untasted,  I  sought  the  office,  and 
sent  my  card  up  to  Mrs.  Travis.  The  re 
sponse  was  immediate. 

"  The  loidy  says  she's  gone  out,  sir,  and 
ain't  likely  to  be  back,"  remarked  the  top 
lofty  buttons,  upon  his  return. 

I  was  so  maddened  by  this  slight,  and  so 
thoroughly  apprehensive  of  further  trouble 
from  the  infernal  shade,  that  I  resolved  with 
out  more  ado  to  sneak  out  of  England  and 
back  to  America  before  the  deadly  blight 
ing  thing  was  aware  of  my  intentions.  I 
immediately  left  the  Savoy,  and  sought  the 
6? 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE     MET 

office  of  the  Green  Star  Line,  secured  a 
room  on  the  steamer  sailing  the  next  morn 
ing — the  Digestic — from  Liverpool,  and  was 
about  packing  up  my  belongings,  when  // 
turned  up  again. 

"  Going  away,  eh  ?" 

"  Yes,"  I  replied,  shortly,  and  then  I  en 
deavored  to  deceive  him.  "  I've  been  in 
vited  down  to  Leamington  to  spend  a  week 
with  my  old  friend  Dr.  Liverton." 

"  Oh,  indeed  !"  he  observed.  "  Thanks 
for  the  address.  I  will  not  neglect  you 
during  your  stay  there.  Be  prepared  for  a 
shove  that  will  turn  your  hair  gray.  Au 
revoir" 

And  he  vanished,  muttering  the  address 
I  had  given  him — "  Dr.  Liverton,  Leaming 
ton — Dr.  Liverton."  To  which  he  added, 
"  I  won't  forget  that,  not  by  a  jugful." 

I  chuckled  softly  to  myself  as  he  disap 
peared.  "  He's  clever,  but — there  are  oth 
ers,"  I  said,  delighted  at  the  ease  with  which 
I  had  rid  myself  of  him;  and  then  eating 
a  hearty  luncheon,  I  took  the  train  to  Liv 
erpool,  where  next  morning  I  embarked  on 
the  Digestic  for  New  York. 
63 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 


II AN    UNHAPPY    VOYAGE 

THE  sense 'of  relief  that  swept  over  me 
when  the  great  anchor  of  the  Digestic  came 
up  from  the  unstrained  quality  of  the  Mer 
sey,  and  I  thought  of  the  fact  that  shortly 
a  vast  ocean  would  roll  between  me  and 
that  fearful  spook,  was  one  of  the  most  de 
lightful  emotions  that  it  has  ever  been  my 
good  fortune  to  experience.  Now  all  seem 
ed  serene,  and  I  sought  my  cabin  below- 
stairs,  whistling  gayly ;  but,  alas!  how  fleet 
ing  is  happiness,  even  to  a  whistler ! 

As  I  drew  near  to  the  room  which  I  had 
fondly  supposed  was  to  be  my  own  exclu 
sively  I  heard  profane  remarks  issuing  there 
from.  There  was  condemnation  of  the  soap  ; 
there  was  perdition  for  the  lighting  appa 
ratus  ;  there  were  maledictions  upon  the  lo 
cation  of  the  port,  and  the  bedding  was 
excommunicate. 

"This  is  strange,"  said  I  to  the  steward. 
"  I  have  engaged  this  room  for  the  passage. 
I  hear  somebody  in  there." 

"  Not  at  all,  sir,"  said  he,  opening  the 
69 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE     MET 

door;    "it  is  empty."     And  to  him  it  un 
doubtedly  appeared  to  be  so. 

"  But,"  I  cried, "didn't you  hear  anything?" 

"  Yes,  I  did,"  he  said,  candidly  ;  "but  I 
supposed  you  was  a  ventriloquist,  sir,  and 
was  a-puttin'  up  of  a  game  on  me." 

Here  the  steward  smiled,  and  I  was  too 
angry  to  retort.  And  then—  Well,  you 
have  guessed  it.  He  turned  up — and  more 
vulgar  than  ever. 

"  Hullo !"  he  said,  nonchalantly,  fooling 
with  a  suit-case.  "  Going  over  ?" 

"  Oh  no  !"  I  replied,  sarcastic.  "Just  out 
for  a  swim.  When  we  get  off  the  Banks  I'm 
going  to  jump  overboard  and  swim  to  the 
Azores  on  a  wager." 

"  How  much  ?"  he  asked. 

"  Five  bob,"  said  I,  feeling  that  he  could 
not  grasp  a  larger  amount. 

"Humph!"  he  ejaculated.  "I'd  rather 
drive  a  cab — as  I  used  to." 

"Ah?"  said  I.  "  That's  what  you  were, 
eh  ?  A  cab-driver.  Takes  a  mighty  mind 
to  be  that,  eh  ?  Splendid  intellectual  ef 
fort  to  drive  a  cab  from  the  Reform  Club 
to  the  Bank,  eh  ?" 

70 


AND     SOME     OTHERS 

I  had  hoped  to  wither  him. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know,"  he  answered,  suave 
ly.  "  I'll  tell  you  this,  though  :  I'd  rather 
go  from  the  Club  to  the  Bank  on  my  han 
som  with  me  holding  the  reins  than  try  to 
do  it  with  Mr.  Gladstone  or  the  Prince  o' 
Wiles  on  the  box." 

"  Prince  o1  Wiles  ?"  I  said,  with  a  with 
ering  manner. 

"  That's  what  I  said,"  he  retorted.  "  You 
would  call  him  Prince  of  Whales,  I  suppose 
— like  a  Yank,  a  blooming  Yank — because 
you  think  Britannia  rules  the  waves." 

I  had  to  laugh  ;  and  then  a  plan  of  con 
ciliation  suggested  itself.  I  would  jolly 
him,  as  my  political  friends  have  it. 

"  Have  a  drink  ?"   I  asked. 

"  No,  thanks  ;  I  don't  indulge,"  he  re 
plied.  "  Let  me  offer  you  a  cigar." 

I  accepted,  and  he  extracted  a  very  fair- 
looking  weed  from  his  box,  which  he  handed 
me.  I  tried  to  bite  off  the  end,  succeeding 
only  in  biting  my  tongue,  whereat  the  pres 
ence  roared  with  laughter. 

"  What1  s  the  joke  now  ?"  I  queried,  irri 
tated. 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE     MET 

"  You,"  he  answered.  "  The  idea  of  any 
one's  being  fool  enough  to  try  to  bite  off  the 
end  of  a  spook  cigar  strikes  me  as  funny." 

From  that  moment  all  thought  of  con 
ciliation  vanished,  and  I  resorted  to  abuse. 

"  You  are  a  low-born  thing !"  I  shouted. 
"  And  if  you  don't  get  out  of  here  right 
away  I'll  break  every  bone  in  your  body." 

"  Very  well,"  he  answered,  coolly,  scrib 
bling  on  a  pad  close  at  hand.  "  There's 
the  address." 

"  What  address  ?"  I  asked. 

"  Of  the  cemetery  where  those  bones  you 
are  going  to  break  are  to  be  found.  You 
go  in  by  the  side  gate,  and  ask  any  of  the 
grave-diggers  where— 

"  You  infernal  scoundrel !"  I  shrieked, 
"  this  is  my  room.  I  have  bought  and 
paid  for  it,  and  I  intend  to  have  it.  Do 
you  hear  ?" 

His  response  was  merely  the  clapping  of 
his  hands  together,  and  in  a  stage-whisper, 
leaning  towards  me,  he  said  : 

"  Bravo  !  Bravo  !  You  are  great.  I  think 
you  could  do  Lear.  Say  those  last  words 


again,  will  you  ?" 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

His  calmness  was  too  much  for  me,  and 
I  lost  all  control  of  myself.  Picking  up  the 
water-bottle,  I  hurled  it  at  him  with  all  the 
force  at  my  command.  It  crashed  through 
him  and  struck  the  mirror  over  the  wash- 
stand,  and  as  the  shattered  glass  fell  with 
a  loud  noise  to  the  floor  the  door  to  my 
state-room  opened,  and  the  captain  of  the 
ship,  flanked  by  the  room  steward  and  the 
doctor,  stood  at  the  opening. 

"What's  all  this  about?"  said  the  cap 
tain,  addressing  me. 

"  I  have  engaged  this  room  for  myself 
alone,"  I  said,  trembling  in  my  rage,  "  and 
I  object  to  that  person's  presence."  Here 
I  pointed  at  the  intruder. 

"  What  person's  presence  ?"  demanded 
the  captain,  looking  at  the  spot  where  the 
haunting  thing  sat  grinning  indecently. 

"  What  person  ?"  I  roared,  forgetting  the 
situation  for  the  moment.  "  Why,  him— 

it whatever  you   choose  to  call  it.     He's 

settled  down  here,  and  has  been  black 
guarding  me  for  twenty  minutes,  and,  damn 
it,  captain,  I  won't  stand  it !" 

"  It's  a  clear  case,"  said  the  captain,  with 
73 


GHOSTS     I     HAVE     MET 

a  sigh,  turning  and  addressing  the  doctor. 
"  Have  you  a  strait-jacket?" 

"  Thank  you,  captain,"  said  I,  calming 
down.  "  It's  what  he  ought  to  have,  but 
it  won't  do  any  good.  You  see,  he's  not  a 
material  thing.  He's  buried  in  Kensal 
Green  Cemetery,  and  so  the  strait -jacket 
won't  help  us." 

Here  the  doctor  stepped  into  the  room 
and  took  me  gently  by  the  arm.  "  Take 
off  your  clothes,"  he  said,  "  and  lie  down. 
You  need  quiet." 

"  I  ?"  I  demanded,  not  as  yet  realizing 
my  position.  "  Not  by  a  long  shot.  Fire 
him  out.  That's  all  I  ask." 

"  Take  off  your  clothes  and  get  into  that 
bed,"  repeated  the  doctor,  peremptorily. 
Then  he  turned  to  the  captain  and  asked 
him  to  detail  two  of  his  sailors  to  help  him. 
"  He's  going  to  be  troublesome,"  he  added, 
in  a  whisper.  "  Mad  as  a  hatter." 

I  hesitate,  in  fact  decline,  to  go  through 
the  agony  of  what  followed  again  by  writing 
of  it  in  detail.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the 
doctor  persisted  in  his  order  that  I  should 
undress  and  go  to  bed,  and  I,  conscious  of 
74 


WAS    FORCIBLY    UNCLAD 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

the  righteousness  of  my  position,  fought 
this  determination,  until,  with  the  assist 
ance  of  the  steward  and  the  two  able-bodied 
seamen  detailed  by  the  captain  at  the  doc 
tor's  request,  I  was  forcibly  unclad  and 
thrown  into  the  lower  berth  and  strapped 
down.  My  wrath  knew  no  bounds,  and  I 
spoke  my  mind  as  plainly  as  I  knew  how. 
It  is  a  terrible  thing  to  be  sane,  healthy, 
fond  of  deck-walking,  full  of  life,  and  withal 
unjustly  strapped  to  a  lower  berth  below 
the  water-line  on  a  hot  day  because  of  a 
little  beast  of  a  cockney  ghost,  and  I  fairly 
howled  my  sentiments. 

On  the  second  day  from  Liverpool  two 
maiden  ladies  in  the  room  next  mine  made 
representations  to  the  captain  which  result 
ed  in  my  removal  to  the  steerage.  They 
couldn't  consent,  they  said,  to  listen  to  the 
shrieks  of  the  maniac  in  the  adjoining 
room. 

And  then,  when  I  found  myself  lying  on 
a  cot  in  the  steerage,  still  strapped  down, 
who  should  appear  but  my  little  spectre. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  sitting  on  the  edge  of 
the  cot,  "  what  do  you  think  of  it  now,  eh  ? 
75 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

Ain't  I  a  shover  from  Shoverville  on  the 
Push  ?" 

"  It's  all  right,"  I  said,  contemptuously. 
"  But  I'll  tell  you  one  thing,  Mr.  Spook : 
when  I  die  and  have  a  ghost  of  my  own, 
that  ghost  will  seek  you  out,  and,  by  thun 
der,  if  it  doesn't  thrash  the  life  out  of  you, 
I'll  disown  it!" 

It  seemed  to  me  that  he  paled  a  bit  at 
this,  but  I  was  too  tired  to  gloat  over  a 
little  thing  like  that,  so  I  closed  my  eyes 
and  went  to  sleep.  A  few  days  later  I  was 
so  calm  and  rational  that  the  doctor  released 
me,  and  for  the  remainder  of  my  voyage  I 
was  as  free  as  any  other  person  on  board, 
except  that  I  found  myself  constantly  under 
surveillance,  and  was  of  course  much  irri 
tated  by  the  notion  that  my  spacious  state 
room  was  not  only  out  of  my  reach,  but 
probably  in  the  undisputed  possession  of 
the  cockney  ghost. 

After  seven  days  of  ocean  travel  New 
York  was  reached,  and  I  was  allowed  to 
step  ashore  without  molestation.  But  my 
infernal  friend  turned  up  on  the  pier,  and 
added  injury  to  insult  by  declaring  in  my 
76 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

behalf  certain  dutiable  articles  in  my  trunks, 
thereby  costing  me  some  dollars  which  I 
should  much  rather  have  saved.  Still,  after 
the  incidents  of  the  voyage,  I  thought  it 
well  to  say  nothing,  and  accepted  the  hard 
ships  of  the  experience  in  the  hope  that  in 
the  far  distant  future  my  spook  would  meet 
his  and  thrash  the  very  death  out  of  him. 

Well,  things  went  on.  The  cockney  spook 
left  me  to  my  own  devices  until  November, 
when  I  had  occasion  to  lecture  at  a  certain 
college  in  the  Northwest.  I  travelled  from 
rny  home  to  the  distant  platform,  went  upon 
it,  was  introduced  by  the  proper  function 
ary,  and  began  my  lecture.  In  the  middle 
of  the  talk,  who  should  appear  in  a  vacant 
chair  well  down  towards  the  stage  but  the 
cockney  ghost,  with  a  guffaw  at  a  strong 
and  not  humorous  point,  which  disconcerted 
me !  I  broke  clown  and  left  the  platform, 
and  in  the  small  room  at  the  side  encoun 
tered  him. 

"  Shove  the  fourth !"  he  cried,  and  van 
ished. 

It  was  then  that  I  consulted  Peters  as  to 
how  best  to  be  rid  of  him. 
77 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

"  There  is  no  use  of  talking  about  it,"  I 
said  to  Peters,  "the  man  is  ruining  me. 
Socially  with  the  Travises  I  am  an  outcast, 
and  I  have  no  doubt  they  will  tell  about  it, 
and  my  ostracism  will  extend.  On  the  Di- 
gestic  my  sanity  is  seriously  questioned,  and 
now  for  the  first  time  in  my  life,  before 
some  two  thousand  people,  I  break  down 
in  a  public  lecture  which  I  have  delivered 
dozens  of  times  hitherto  without  a  tremor. 
The  thing  cannot  go  on." 

"  I  should  say  not,"  Peters  answered. 
"  Maybe  I  can  help  you  to  get  rid  of  him, 
but  I'm  not  positive  about  it ;  my  new 
scheme  isn't  as  yet  perfected.  Have  you 
tried  the  fire-extinguisher  treatment?" 

I  will  say  here,  that  Peters  upon  two  oc 
casions  has  completely  annihilated  unpleas 
ant  spectres  by  turning  upon  them  the  col 
orless  and  odorless  liquids  whose  chemical 
action  is  such  that  fire  cannot  live  in  their 
presence. 

"  Fire,   the  vital    spark,  is    the   essential 

element  of  all  these  chaps,"  said  he,"  and  if 

you  can  turn  the  nozzle  of  your  extinguisher 

on  that  spook  your  ghost  simply  goes  out." 

73 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

"  No,  I  haven't,"  I  replied  ;  "  but  I  will 
the  first  chance  I  get."  And  I  left  him,  hope 
ful  if  not  confident  of  a  successful  exorcism. 

On  my  return  home  I  got  out  two  of  the 
extinguishers  which  were  left  in  my  back 
hall  for  use  in  case  of  an  emergency,  and 
tested  one  of  them  on  the  lawn.  I  merely 
wished  to  ascertain  if  it  would  work  with 
spirit,  and  it  did ;  it  went  off  like  a  soda- 
water  fountain  loaded  with  dynamite,  and 
I  felt  truly  happy  for  the  first  time  in  many 
days. 

"  The  vulgar  little  beast  would  better 
keep  away  from  me  now,"  I  laughed.  But 
my  mirth  was  short-lived.  Whether  or  not 
the  obnoxious  little  chap  had  overheard,  or 
from  some  hidden  coign  had  watched  my 
test  of  the  fire-extinguisher  I  don't  know, 
but  when  he  came  to  my  den  that  night 
he  was  amply  protected  against  the  anni 
hilating  effects  of  the  liquid  by  a  flaring 
plaid  mackintosh,  with  a  toque  for  his  head, 
and  the  minute  I  started  the  thing  squirt 
ing  he  turned  his  back  and  received  the 
charge  harmless  on  his  shoulders.  The 
only  effect  of  the  experiment  was  the  drench- 
79 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE    MET 

ing  and  consequent  ruin  of  a  pile  of  MSS. 
I  had  been  at  work  on  all  day,  which  gave 
me  another  grudge  against  him.  When  the 
extinguisher  had  exhausted  itself,  the  spec 
tre  turned  about  and  fairly  raised  the  ceil 
ing  with  his  guffaws,  and  when  he  saw  my 
ruined  pages  upon  the  desk  his  mirth  be 
came  convulsive. 

"  De-lightful !"  he  cried.  "For  an  im 
promptu  shove  wherein  I  turn  over  the 
shoving  to  you  in  my  own  behalf,  I  never 
saw  it  equalled.  Wouldn't  be  a  bad  thing 
if  all  writers  would  wet  down  their  MSS. 
the  same  way,  now  would  it  ?" 

But  I  was  too  indignant  to  reply,  and  too 
chagrined  over  my  failure  to  remain  within 
doors,  so  I  rushed  out  and  paced  the  fields 
for  two  hours.  When  I  returned,  he  had 
gone. 

Ill — THE    SPIRIT    TRIES   TO    MAKE    REPA 
RATION 

THREE  weeks  later  he  turned  up  once 
more.  "Great  Heavens!"  I  cried;  "you 
back  again  ?" 

"Yes,"  he  answered;  "and  I've  come  to 

80 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

tell  you  I'm  mighty  sorry  about  those  ruined 
MSS.  of  yours.  It  is  too  bad  that  your 
whole  day's  work  had  to  go  for  nothing." 

"  I  think  so  myself,"  I  retorted,  coldly. 
"  It's  rather  late  in  the  day  for  you  to  be 
sorry,  though.  If  you'll  show  your  sincer 
ity  by  going  away  and  never  crossing  my 
path  again,  I  may  believe  in  you." 

"  Ah  !"  he  said,  "  I've  shown  it  in  another 
way.  Indeed  I  have.  You  know  I  have 
some  conscience,  though,  to  tell  the  truth, 
I  haven't  made  much  use  of  it.  This  time, 
however,  as  I  considered  the  situation,  a 
little  voice  rose  up  within  me  and  said  : 
*  It's  all  right,  old  chap,  to  be  rough  on  this 
person  ;  make  him  mad  and  shove  him  every 
which  way  ;  but  don't  destroy  his  work.  His 
work  is  what  he  lives  by — 

"  Yes,"  I  interrupted,  "  and  after  what  I 
told  you  on  the  steamer  about  what  I  would 
do  to  you  when  we  got  on  even  terms,  you 
are  not  anxious  to  have  me  die.  I  know 
just  how  you  feel.  No  thing  likes  to  con 
template  that  paralysis  that  will  surely  fall 
upon  you  when  my  ghost  begins  to  get  in 
its  fine  work.  I'm  putting  it  in  training  now." 
F  81 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE    MET 

"  You  poor  droll  mortal  !"  laughed  the 
cockney.  "  You  poor  droll  mortal !  As  if 
I  could  ever  be  afraid  of  that !  What  is  the 
matter  with  my  going  into  training  myself? 
Two  can  train,  you  know — even  three.  You 
almost  make  me  feel  sorry  I  tried  to  remedy 
the  loss  of  those  MSS." 

Somehow  or  other  a  sense  of  some  new 
misfortune  came  upon  me. 

"  What  ?"  I  said,  nervously. 

"  I  say  I'm  almost  sorry  I  tried  to  remedy 
the  loss  of  those  manuscripts.  Composi 
tion,  particularly  poetry,  is  devilish  hard 
for  me — I  admit  it — and  when  I  think  of 
how  I  toiled  over  my  substitutes  for  your 
ruined  stuff,  and  see  how  very  ungrateful 
you  are,  I  grudge  the  effort." 

"  I  don't  understand  you,"  I  said,  anx 
iously.  "  What  do  you  mean  ?" 

"  I  mean  that  I  have  written  and  sent 
out  to  the  editors  of  the  papers  you  write 
for  a  half  a  dozen  poems  and  short  stories." 

"What  has  all  that  got  to  do  with  me?" 
I  demanded. 

"  A  great    deal,"   he    said.     "  You'll  get 
the  pay.     I  signed  your  name  to  'em." 
82 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

"Y  —  you  —  you  —  you  —  did  what  ?"  I 
cried. 

"  Signed  your  name  to  'em.  There  was 
a  sonnet  to  'A  Coal  Grab' — that  was  the 
longest  of  the  lot.  I  think  it  will  cover  at 
least  six  magazine  pages  — 

"  But,"  I  cried,  "a  sonnet  never  contains 
more  than  fourteen  lines — you — fool !" 

"  Oh  yes,  it  does,1'  he  replied,  calmly. 
"  This  one  of  yours  had  over  four  hundred. 
And  then  I  wrote  a  three-page  quatrain  on 
*  Immortality,'  which,  if  I  do  say  it,  is  the 
funniest  thing  I  ever  read.  I  sent  that  to 
the  Weekly  Methodist" 

"  Good  Lord,  good  Lord,  good  Lord  !"  I 
moaned.  "  A  three-page  quatrain  !" 

"  Yes,"  he  observed,  calmly  lighting  one 
of  his  accursed  cigars.  "And  you'll  get 
all  the  credit." 

A  ray  of  hope  entered  my  soul,  and  it 
enabled  me  to  laugh  hysterically.  "They'll 
know  it  isn't  mine,"  said  I.  "  They  know 
my  handwriting  at  the  office  of  the  Weekly 
Methodist" 

"  No  doubt,"  said  he,  dashing  all  my 
hopes  to  the  ground.  "  But — ah— to  rem- 
83 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

edy  that  drawback  I  took  pains  to  find  out 
what  type-writer  you  used,  and  I  had  my 
quatrain  copied  on  one  of  the  same  make." 

"  But  the  letter — the  note  with  the  manu 
script  ?"  I  put  in. 

"  Oh,  I  got  over  that  very  easily,"  he  said. 
"  I  had  that  written  also  on  the  machine, 
on  thin  paper,  and  traced  your  signature  at 
the  bottom.  It  will  be  all  right,  my  dear 
fellow.  They'll  never  suspect." 

And  then,  looking  at  the  spirit -watch 
which  he  carried  in  his  spectral  fob-pocket, 
he  vanished,  leaving  me  immersed  in  the 
deepest  misery  of  my  life.  Not  content 
with  ruining  me  socially,  and  as  a  lecturer; 
not  satisfied  with  destroying  me  mentally 
on  the  seas,  he  had  now  attacked  me  on  my 
most  vulnerable  point,  my  literary  aspira 
tions.  I  could  not  rest  until  I  had  read  his 
"three-page  quatrain"  on  "Immortality." 
Vulgar  as  I  knew  him  to  be,  I  felt  confident 

o 

that  over  my  name  something  had  gone  out 
which  even  in  my  least  self-respecting  moods 
I  could  not  tolerate.  The  only  comfort 
that  came  to  me  was  that  his  verses  and 
his  type-writing  and  his  tracings  of  my  au- 
84 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

tograph  would  be  as  spectral  to  others  as 
to  the  eye  not  attuned  to  the  seeing  of 
ghosts.  I  was  soon  to  be  undeceived,  how 
ever,  for  the  next  morning's  mail  brought 
to  my  home  a  dozen  packages  from  my  best 
"  consumers,"  containing  the  maudlin  friv- 
olings  of  this — this — this — well,  there  is  no 
polite  word  to  describe  him  in  any  known 
tongue.  I  shall  have  to  study  the  Aryan 
language — or  Kipling — to  find  an  epithet 
strong  enough  to  apply  to  this  especial  case. 
Every  point,  every  single  detail,  about  these 
packages  was  convincing  evidence  of  their 
contents  having  been  of  my  own  produc 
tion.  The  return  envelopes  were  marked  at 
the  upper  corner  with  my  name  and  address. 
The  handwriting  upon  them  was  manifestly 
mine,  although  I  never  in  my  life  penned 
those  particular  superscriptions.  Within 
these  envelopes  were,  I  might  say,  pounds 
of  MSS.,  apparently  from  my  own  type 
writing  machine,  and  signed  in  an  autograph 
which  would  have  deceived  even  myself. 

And  the  stuff! 

Stuff  is  not  the  word — in  fact,  there  is  no 
word  in  any  language,  however  primitive 
85 


GHOSTS    1     HAVE     MET 

and  impolite,  that  will  describe  accurately 
the  substance  of  those  pages.  And  with 
each  came  a  letter  from  the  editor  of  the 
periodical  to  which  the  tale  or  poem  had 
been  sent  advising  me  to  stop  work  for  a 
while,  and  one  suggested  the  Keeley  cure  ! 

Immediately  I  sat  down  and  wrote  to  the 
various  editors  to  whom  these  productions 
had  been  submitted,  explaining  all  —  and 
every  one  of  them  came  back  to  me  un 
opened,  with  the  average  statement  that 
until  I  had  rested  a  year  they  really  hadn't 
the  time  to  read  what  I  wrote  ;  and  my  best 
friend  among  them,  the  editor  of  the  Week 
ly  Methodist,  took  the  trouble  to  telegraph 
to  my  brother  the  recommendation  that  I 
should  be  looked  after.  And  out  of  the 
mistaken  kindness  of  his  heart,  he  printed 
a  personal  in  his  next  issue  to  the  effect 
that  his  "valued  contributor,  Mr.  Me,  the 
public  would  regret  to  hear,  was  confined 
to  his  house  by  a  sudden  and  severe  attack 
of  nervous  prostration,"  following  it  up  with 
an  estimate  of  my  career,  which  bore  every 
mark  of  having  been  saved  up  to  that  time 
for  use  as  an  obituary. 
86 


AND     SOME     OTHERS 

And  as  I  read  the  latter — the  obituary — 
over,  with  tears  in  rny  eyes,  what  should  I 
hear  but  the  words,  spoken  at  my  back,  clear 
ly,  but  in  unmistakable  cockney  accents, 

"  Shove  the  fifth  !"  followed  by  uproari 
ous  laughter.  I  grabbed  up  the  ink-bottle 
and  threw  it  with  all  my  strength  back  of 
me,  and  succeeded  only  in  destroying  the 
wall-paper. 

IV THE    FAILURE 

THE  destruction  of  the  wall-paper,  not  to 
mention  the  wiping  out  in  a  moment  of  my 
means  of  livelihood,  made  of  the  fifth  shove 
an  intolerable  nuisance.  Controlling  my 
self  with  difficulty,  I  put  on  my  hat  and 
rushed  to  the  telegraph  office,  whence  I 
despatched  a  message,  marked  "  Rush," 
to  Peters. 

"  For  Heaven's  sake,  complete  your  ex 
orcism  and  bring  it  here  at  once,"  I  wired 
him.  "Answer  collect." 

Peters  by  no  means  soothed  my  agitation 
by  his  immediate  and  extremely  flippant 
response. 

"  I  don't  know  why  you  wish  me  to  an- 
87 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

swer  collect,  but  I  suppose  you  do.  So  I 
answer  as  you  request :  Collect.  What  is 
it  you  are  going  to  collect  ?  Your  scattered 
faculties  ?"  he  telegraphed.  It  was  a  mean 
sort  of  a  telegram  to  send  to  a  man  in  my 
unhappy  state,  and  if  he  hadn't  prepaid  it 
I  should  never  have  forgiven  him.  I  was 
mad  enough  when  I  received  it,  and  a  hot 
retort  was  about  to  go  back,  when  the  both 
ersome  spook  turned  up  and  drew  my  mind 
off  to  other  things. 

"  Well,  what  do  you  think  of  me  ?"  he 
said,  ensconcing  himself  calmly  on  my  di 
van.  "  Pretty  successful  shover  myself, 
eh  ?"  Then  he  turned  his  eye  to  the  ink- 
spots  on  the  wall.  "  Novel  design  in  deco 
ration,  that.  You  ought  to  get  employment 
in  some  wall-paper  house.  Given  an  accu 
rate  aim  and  plenty  of  ink,  you  can't  be 
beaten  for  vigorous  spatter-work." 

I  pretended  to  ignore  his  presence,  and 
there  was  a  short  pause,  after  which  he 
began  again  : 

u  Sulky,  eh  ?  Oh,  well,  I  don't  blame 
you.  There's  nothing  in  this  world  that 
can  so  harrow  up  one's  soul  as  impotent 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

wrath.     I've  heard  of  people  bursting  with 
it.     I've  had  experiences  in  the  art  of  irri 
tation  before  this  case.     There  was  a  fellow 
once  hired  my  cab  for  an  hour.     Drove  him 
all  about  London,  and  then  he  stopped  in 
at    a   chop-house,  leaving   me   outside.     I 
waited  and  waited  and  waited,  but  he  never 
came  back.     Left  by  the    back   door,  you 
know.     Clever   trick,  and   for   a  while   the 
laugh  was  on   me  ;   but  when   I   got  to  the 
point  where  I  could  haunt  him,  I  did  it  to 
the  Regent's  taste.    I  found  him  three  years 
after  my  demise,  and  through  the  balance 
of  his  life  pursued  him   everywhere  with  a 
phantom   cab.     If  he   went  to  church,  I'd 
drive  my  spectre  rig  right  down  the  middle 
aisle  after  him.     If  he  called  on  a  girl,  there 
was  the  cab  drawn  up  alongside  of  him  in 
the  parlor  all  the  time,  the  horse  stamping 
his  foot  and  whinnying  like  all  possessed. 
Of  course  no  one  else  saw  me  or  the  horse 
or  the  cab,  but  he  did;  and,  Lord!  how  mad 
he  was,   and  how  hopeless  !     Finally,  in   a 
sudden    surge   of  wrath   at  his   impotence, 
he   burst,  just  like  a  soap-bubble.     It  was 
most  amusing.     Even  the  horse  laughed." 
S9 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE     MET 

"Thanks  for  the  story,"  said  I,  wishing 
to  anger  him  by  my  nonchalance.  "  I'll 
write  it  up." 

"  Do,"  he  said.  "  It  will  make  a  clever 
sixth  shove  for  me.  People  say  your  fan 
cies  are  too  wild  and  extravagant  even  now. 
A  story  like  that  will  finish  you  at  once." 

"  Again,  thanks,"  said  I,  very  calmly. 
"  This  time  for  the  hint.  Acting  on  your 
advice,  I  won't  write  it  up." 

"Don't,"  he  retorted.  "And  be  forever 
haunted  with  the  idea.  Either  way,  it  suits 
me." 

And  he  vanished  once  more. 

The  next  morning  Peters  arrived  at  my 
house. 

"  I've  come,"  he  said,  as  he  entered  my 
den.  "  The  scheme  is  perfected  at  last, 
and  possibly  you  can  use  it.  You  need 
help  of  some  kind.  I  can  see  that,  just  by 
reading  your  telegram.  You're  nervous  as 
a  cat.  How  do  you  heat  your  house  ?" 

"What's  that  got  to  do  with  it?"  I  de 
manded,  irritably.  "  You  can't  evaporate 
the  little  cuss." 

"  Don't  want  to,"  Peters  replied.  "  That's 
90 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

been  tried  before,  and  it  doesn't  work.  My 
scheme  is  a  better  one  than  that.  Did  you 
ever  notice,  while  smoking  in  a  house  that 
is  heated  by  a  hot-air  furnace,  how,  when  a 
cloud  of  smoke  gets  caught  in  the  current 
of  air  from  the  register,  it  is  mauled  and 
twisted  until  it  gets  free,  or  else  is  torn  en 
tirely  apart  ?" 

"  Yes,  I  have,1'  said  I.     "  What  of  it  ?" 

"  Well,  what's  the  matter  with  being  ge 
nial  with  your  old  cockney  until  he  gets  in 
the  habit  of  coming  here  every  night,  and 
bide  your  time  until,  without  his  knowing 
it,  you  can  turn  a  blast  from  the  furnace  on 
him  that  will  simply  rend  him  to  pieces?1' 

"  By  Jove  !"  I  cried,  delightedly.  "  You 
are  a  genius,  old  chap." 

I  rose  and  shook  his  hand  until  he  re 
monstrated. 

"  Save  your  energy  for  him,"  said  he. 
"You'll  need  it.  It  won't  be  a  pleasant 
spectacle  to  witness  when,  in  his  struggles 
to  get  away,  he  is  gradually  dismembered. 
It  will  be  something  like  the  drawing  and 
quartering  punishment  of  olden  times." 

I  shuddered  as  I  thought  of  it,  and  for  a 
91 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE     MET 

moment  was  disposed  to  reject  the  plan, 
but  my  weakness  left  me  as  I  thought  of 
the  ruin  that  stared  me  in  the  face. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know,"  I  said,  shaking  my 
head.  "  It  will  have  its  pleasurable  side, 
however  fearsome  it  may  prove  as  a  sight. 
This  house  is  just  fitted  for  the  operation, 
particularly  on  warm  days.  I  have  seen 
times  when  the  blasts  of  hot  air  from  my 
furnace  have  blown  one  of  my  poems  off  my 
table  across  the  room." 

"Great  Scott!"  cried  Peters.  "What  a 
cyclone  of  an  air-box  you  must  have !" 

Fortunately  the  winter  season  was  on,  and 
we  were  able  to  test  the  capacity  of  the 
furnace,  with  gratifying  results.  A  soap- 
bubble  was  blown,  and  allowed  to  float 
downward  until  the  current  was  reached, 
and  the  novel  shapes  it  took,  as  it  was 
blown  about  the  room  in  its  struggles  to 

OO 

escape  before  it  burst,  were  truly  wonder 
ful.  I  doubted  not  for  an  instant,  from 
what  I  then  saw,  that  the  little  cad  of  a 
spectre  that  was  ruining  my  life  would  soon 
meet  his  Nemesis.  So  convinced  was  I  of 
the  ultimate  success  of  the  plan  that  I  could 
92 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

hardly  wait  patiently  for  his  coming.     I  be 
came  morbidly  anxious  for  the  horrid  spec 
tacle  which   1    should  witness  as  his  body 
was  torn   apart    and   gradually  annihilated 
by  the  relentless  output  of  my  furnace  flues. 
To  my  great  annoyance,  it  was  two  weeks 
before  he  turned  up  again,  and  I  was  be 
ginning  to  fear  that  he  had  in   some  wise 
got  wind  of  my  intentions,  and  was  turning 
my  disappointment   over  his   absence   into 
the  sixth  of  his  series  of  "  shoves."     Final 
ly,  however,  my  anxiety  was  set  at  rest  by 
his  appearance  on  a  night  especially  adapt 
ed  to  a  successful  issue  of  the  conspiracy. 
It  was  blowing  great  guns  from  the  west, 
and  the  blasts  of  air,  intermittent  in  their 
force,  that  came  up  through  the  flues  were 
such  that  under  other  circumstances   they 
would  have  annoyed  me  tremendously.     Al 
most  everything  in  the  line  of  the  current 
that   issued   from   the   register   and   passed 
diagonally  across  the  room  to  my  fireplace, 
and  so  on  up  the  chimney,  was  disturbed. 
The  effect  upon  particles  of  paper  and  the 
fringes  on  my  chairs  was  almost  that  of  a 
pneumatic  tube  on  substances  placed  within 
93 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

it,  and  on  one  or  two  occasions  I  was  seri 
ously  apprehensive  of  the  manner  in  which 
the  flames  on  the  hearth  leaped  upward 
into  the  sooty  heights  of  my  chimney  flues. 

But  when,  as  happened  shortly,  I  sud 
denly  became  conscious  that  my  spectre 
cockney  had  materialized,  all  my  fears  for 
the  safety  of  my  house  fled,  and  I  surrep 
titiously  turned  off  the  heat,  so  that  once 
he  got  within  range  of  the  register  I  could 
turn  it  on  again,  and  his  annihilation  would 
be  as  instantaneous  as  what  my  newspaper 
friends  call  an  electrocution.  And  that  was 
precisely  where  I  made  my  mistake,  al 
though  I  must  confess  that  what  ensued 
when  I  got  the  nauseating  creature  within 
range  was  most  delightful. 

"  Didn't  expect  me  back,  eh  ?"  he  said, 
as  he  materialized  in  my  library.  "  Missed 
me,  I  suppose,  eh  ?" 

"  I've  missed  you  like  the  deuce !"  I  re 
plied,  cordially,  holding  out  my  hand  as  if 
welcoming  him  back,  whereat  he  frowned 
suspiciously.  "  Now  that  I'm  reconciled  to 
your  system,  and  know  that  there  is  no  pos 
sible  escape  for  me,  I  don't  seem  to  feel  so 
94 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

badly.  How  have  you  been,  and  what  have 
you  been  doing  ?" 

"Bah!"  he  retorted.  "What's  up  now? 
You  know  mighty  well  you  don't  like  me 
any  better  than  you  ever  did.  What  funny 
little  game  are  you  trying  to  work  on  me 
now,  eh  ?" 

"  Really,  'Any,"  I  replied,  "  you  wrong 
me — and?  by-the-way,  excuse  me  for  calling 
you  'Arry.  It  is  the  most  appropriate  name 
I  can  think  of  at  the  moment." 

"  Call  me  what  you  blooming  please," 
he  answered.  "  But  remember  you  can't 
soft-soap  me  into  believing  you  like  me. 
B-r-r-r-r!"  he  added,  shivering.  "It's 
beastly  cold  in  here.  What  you  been  doing 


— storing  ice  ?' 


"  Well— there's  a  fire  burning  over  there 
in  the  fireplace,"  said  I,  anxious  to  get  him 
before  the  open  chimney-place;  for,  by  a 
natural  law,  that  was  directly  in  the  line  of 
the  current. 

He  looked  at  me  suspiciously,  and  then 
at  the  fireplace  with  equal  mistrust;  then 
he  shrugged  his  shoulders  with  a  mocking 
laugh  that  jarred. 

95 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE    MET 

"  Humph  !"  he  said.  "  What's  your  scheme  ? 
Got  some  patent  explosive  logs,  full  of  chem 
icals,  to  destroy  me  ?" 

I  laughed.  "  How  suspicious  you  are  !" 
I  said. 

"  Yes — I  always  am  of  suspicious  charac 
ters,"  he  replied,  planting  himself  immedi 
ately  in  front  of  the  register,  desirous  no 
doubt  of  acting  directly  contrary  to  my  sug 
gestion. 

My  opportunity  had  come  more  easily 
than  I  expected. 

"  There  isn't  any  heat  here,"  said  he. 

"  It's  turned  off.  I'll  turn  it  on  for  you," 
said  I,  scarcely  able  to  contain  myself  with 
excitement — and  I  did. 

Well,  as  1  say,  the  spectacle  was  pleasing, 
but  it  did  not  work  as  I  had  intended.  He 
was  caught  in  the  full  current,  not  in  any 
of  the  destroying  eddyings  of  the  side  upon 
which  I  had  counted  to  twist  his  legs  off 
and  wring  his  neck.  Like  the  soap-bubble 
it  is  true,  he  was  blown  into  various  odd 
fantastic  shapes,  such  as  crullers  resolve 
themselves  into  when  not  properly  looked 
after,  but  there  was  no  dismembering  of 
96 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

his  body.  He  struggled  hard  to  free  him 
self,  and  such  grotesque  attitudes  as  his 
figure  assumed  I  never  saw  even  in  one  of 
Aubrey  Beardsley's  finest  pictures ;  and 
once,  as  his  leg  and  right  arm  verged  on 
the  edge  of  one  of  the  outside  eddies,  I 
hoped  to  see  these  members  elongated  like 
a  piece  of  elastic  until  they  snapped  off; 
but,  with  a  superhuman  struggle,  he  got 
them  free,  with  the  loss  only  of  one  of  his 
fingers,  by  which  time  the  current  had  blown 
him  across  the  room  and  directly  in  front 
of  my  fender.  To  keep  from  going  up  the 
chimney,  he  tried  to  brace  himself  against 
this  with  his  feet,  but  missing  the  rail,  as 
helpless  as  a  feather,  he  floated,  toes  first, 
into  the  fireplace,  and  thence,  kicking,  strug 
gling,  and  swearing  profanely,  disappeared 
into  the  flue. 

It  was  too  exciting  a  moment  for  me  to 
laugh  over  my  triumph,  but  shortly  there 
came  a  nervous  reaction  which  made  me 
hysterical  as  I  thought  of  his  odd  appear 
ance ;  and  then  following  close  upon  this 
came  the  dashing  of  my  hopes. 

An  infernal  misplaced,  uncalled-for  back 
G  97 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

gust,  a  diversion  in  which,  thanks  to  an 
improper  construction,  my  chimney  fre 
quently  indulges,  blew  the  unhappy  creat 
ure  back  into  the  room  again,  strained, 
sprained,  panting,  minus  the  finger  he  had 
lost,  and  so  angry  that  he  quivered  all  over. 

What  his  first  words  were  I  shall  not  re 
peat.  They  fairly  seethed  out  of  his  turned 
and  twisted  soul,  hissing  like  the  escape- 
valve  of  an  ocean  steamer,  and  his  eyes, 
as  they  fell  upon  mine,  actually  burned 
me. 

"  This  settles  it,"  he  hissed,  venomously. 
"  I  had  intended  letting  you  off  with  one 
more  shove,  but  now,  after  your  dastardly 
attempt  to  rend  me  apart  with  your  damned 
hot-air  furnace,  I  shall  haunt  you  to  your 
dying  day;  I  shall  haunt  you  so  terribly 
that  years  before  your  final  exit  from  this 
world  you  will  pray  for  death.  As  a  shover 
you  have  found  me  equal  to  everything,  but 
since  you  prefer  twisting,  twisting  be  it. 
You  shall  hear  from  me  again  !" 

He  vanished,  and,  I  must  confess  it,  I 
threw  myself  upon  my  couch,  weeping  hot 
tears  of  despair. 

98 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

Peters's  scheme  had  failed,  and  I  was  in 
a  far  worse  position  than  ever.  Shoving  I 
can  stand,  but  the  brief  exhibition  of  twist 
ing  that  I  had  had  in  watching  his  strug 
gles  with  that  awful  cyclonic  blast  from 
below  convinced  me  that  there  was  some 
thing  in  life  even  more  to  be  dreaded  than 
the  shoving  he  and  I  had  been  indulg 
ing  in. 

But  there  was  a  postscript,  and  now  all  is 
well  again,  because — but  let  us  reserve  the 
wherefore  of  the  postscript  for  another,  con 
cluding  chapter. 

v — POSTSCRIPT 

So  hopeless  was  my  estate  now  become 
that,  dreading  more  than  ever  that  which 
the  inscrutable  future  held  for  me,  I  sat 
clown  and  framed  an  advertisement,  which 
I  contemplated  putting  in  all  the  newspa 
pers,  weeklies,  and  monthly  periodicals,  of 
fering  a  handsome  reward  for  any  suggest 
ion  which  might  result  in  ridding  me  of 
the  cockney  ghost.  The  inventive  mind  of 
man  has  been  able  to  cope  successfully  with 
99 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

rats  and  mice  and  other  household  pests. 
Why,  then,  should  there  not  be  somewhere 
in  the  world  a  person  of  sufficient  ingenuity 
to  cope  with  an  obnoxious  spirit  ?  If  rat- 
dynamite  and  rough  on  June-bugs  were  pos 
sible,  why  was  it  not  likely  that  some  as 
yet  unknown  person  had  turned  his  atten 
tion  to  spectrology,  and  evolved  something 
in  the  nature  of  rough  on  ghosts,  spectre- 
melinite,  or  something  else  of  an  effective 
nature,  I  asked  myself.  It  seemed  reason 
able  to  suppose  that  out  of  the  millions  of 
people  in  the  world  there  were  others  than 
Peters  and  myself  who  had  made  a  study 
of  ghosts  and  methods  of  exorcising  them, 
and  if  these  persons  could  only  be  reached 
I  might  yet  escape.  Accordingly,  I  penned 
the  advertisement  about  as  follows  : 

VyANTED,  by  a  young  and  rising  author, 
who  is  pursued  by  a  vindictive  spirit, 

A   GHOST   CURE. 

A  liberal  reward  will  be  paid  to  any  wizard, 
recognized  or  unrecognized,  who  will,  before 
February  I,  1898,  send  to  me  a  detailed  state 
ment  of  a 

100 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

GUARANTEED   METHOD 
of  getting  rid  of 

SPOOKS. 

It  is  agreed  that  these  communications  shall 
be  regarded  as  strictly  confidential  until  such 
a  time  as  through  their  medium  the  spirit  is 
effectually 

LAID, 

after  which  time  the  cure  will  be  exploited 

FREE   OF    CHARGE 
in  the  best  advertising  mediums  of  the  day. 

To  this  I  appended  an  assumed  name 
and  a  temporary  address,  and  was  about  to 
send  it  out,  when  my  friend  Wilkins,  a  mill 
ionaire  student  of  electricity,  living  in  Flor 
ida,  invited  me  to  spend  my  Christmas  holi 
days  with  him  on  Lake  Worth. 

"  I've  got  a  grand  scheme,"  he  wrote, 
"  which  I  am  going  to  test,  and  I'd  like  to 
have  you  present  at  the  trial.  Come  down, 
if  you  can,  and  see  my  new  electric  sail 
boat  and  all-around  dynamic  Lone  Fisher 
man." 

The  idea  took  hold  of  me  at  once.  In 
my  nervous  state  the  change  of  scene  would 

101 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

do  me  good.  Besides,  Wilkins  was  a  de 
lightful  companion. 

So,  forgetting  my  woes  for  the  moment, 
I  packed  my  trunk  and  started  South  for 
Wilkins's  Island.  It  was  upon  this  trip  that 
the  vengeful  spirit  put  in  his  first  twist,  for 
at  Jacksonville  I  was  awakened  in  the  mid 
dle  of  the  night  by  a  person,  whom  I  took 
to  be  the  conductor,  who  told  me  to  change 
cars.  This  I  did,  and  falling  asleep  in  the 
car  to  which  I  had  changed,  waked  up  the 
next  morning  to  find  myself  speeding  across 
the  peninsula  instead  of  going  downward 
towards  the  Keys,  as  I  should  have  done, 
landing  eventually  at  a  small  place  called 
Homosassa,  on  the  Gulf  coast. 

Of  course  it  was  not  the  conductor  of  the 
first  train  who,  under  cover  of  the  darkness, 
had  led  me  astray,  but  the  pursuing  spirit, 
as  I  found  out  when,  bewildered,  I  sat  upon 
the  platform  of  the  station  at  Homosassa, 
wondering  how  the  deuce  I  had  got  there. 
He  turned  up  at  that  moment,  and  frankly 
gloated  over  the  success  of  what  he  called 
shove  the  seventh,  and  twist  the  first. 

"  Nice  place,  this,"  said  he,  with  a  nau- 
102 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

seating  smirk.  "  So  close  to  Lake  Worth— 
eh  ?  Only  two  days'  ride  on  the  choo-choo, 
if  you  make  connections,  and  when  chang 
ing  take  the  right  trains." 

I  pretended  not  to  see  him,  and  began  to 
whistle  the  intermezzo  from  "  Cavalleria 
Rusticana,"  to  show  how  little  I  cared. 

"  Good  plan,  old  chap,"  said  he  ;  "  but  it 
won't  work.  I  know  you  are  put  out,  in  spite 
of  the  tunefulness  of  your  soul.  But  wait  for 
my  second  twist.  You  11  wish  you'd  struck  a 
cyclone  instead  when  that  turn  comes." 

It  was,  as  he  suggested,  at  least  two  days 
before  I  was  able  to  get  to  Wilkins  at  Lake 
Worth;  but  after  I  got  there  the  sense  of 
annoyance    and    the    deep    dejection    into 
which  I  was  plunged  wore  away,  as  well  it 
might,  for  the  test  which  I  was  invited  to 
witness  was  most  interesting.     The  dynamic 
Lone  Fisherman  was  wonderful  enough,  but 
the   electric  sail -boat  was  a  marvel.     The 
former  was  very  simple.     It  consisted  of  a 
reel  operated  by  electricity,  which,  the  mo 
ment  a  blue-fish  struck  the  skid  at  the  end 
of  the  line,  reeled  the  fish  in,  and  flopped 
it  into  a  basket  as  easily  and  as  surely  as 
103 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

you  please  ;  but  the  principle  of  the  sail 
boat  was  new. 

"  I  don't  need  a  breeze  to  sail  anywhere," 
said  Wilkins,  as  he  hauled  up  the  mainsail, 
which  flapped  idly  in  the  still  air.  "  For 
you  see,"  he  added,  touching  a  button  along 
side  of  the  tiller,  "  this  button  sets  that  big 
electric  fan  in  the  stern  revolving,  and  the 
result  is  an  artificial  breeze  which  distends 
the  sail,  and  there  you  are." 

It  was  even  as  he  said.  A  huge  fan  with 
a  dozen  flanges  in  the  stern  began  to  revolve 
with  wonderful  rapidity;  in  an  instant  the 
sails  bellied  out,  and  the  Horace  J.,  as  his 
boat  was  named,  was  speeding  through  the 
waters  before  the  breeze  thus  created  in 
record-breaking  fashion. 

"By  Jove,  Billie,"  I  said,  "this  is  a 
dandy !" 

"Isn't  it!"  cried  an  old  familiar  voice  at 
my  elbow. 

I  turned  as  if  stung.  The  spirit  was  with 
me  again,  prepared,  I  doubted  not,  for  his 
second  twist.  I  sprang  from  my  seat,  a  sud 
den  inspiration  flashing  upon  me,  jumped 
back  of  the  revolving  fan,  and  turning  the 
104 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

full  force  of  the  wind  it  created  upon  my  vin 
dictive  visitant,  blew  him  fairly  and  squarely 
into  the  bulging  sail. 

"  There,  blast  your  cockney  eyes !"  I 
cried  ;  "  take  that." 

He  tried  to  retort,  but  without  avail.  The 
wind  that  emanated  from  the  fan  fairly 
rammed  his  words  back  into  his  throat 
every  time  he  opened  his  mouth  to  speak, 
and  there  he  lay,  flat  against  the  canvas, 
fluttering  like  a  leaf,  powerless  to  escape. 

"  Hot  air  doesn't  affect  you  much,  you 
transparent  jackass  !"  I  roared.  "  Let  me 
see  how  a  stiff  nor'easter  suits  your  style 
of  beauty." 

I  will  not  bore  the  reader  with  any  further 
details  of  the  Lake  Worth  experience.  Suf 
fice  it  to  say  that  for  five  hours  I  kept  the 
miserable  thing  a  pneumatic  prisoner  in  the 
concave  surface  of  the  sail.  Try  as  he 
would,  he  could  not  escape,  and  finally, 
when  Wilkins  and  I  went  ashore  for  the 
night,  and  the  cockney  ghost  was  released, 
he  vanished,  using  unutterable  language, 
and  an  idea  came  to  me,  putting  which  into 
105 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE    MET 

operation,  I  at  last  secured  immunity  from 
his  persecutions. 

Returning  to  New  York  three  days  later, 
I  leased  a  small  office  in  a  fire-proof  power 
building  not  far  from  Madison  Square,  fitted 
it  up  as  if  for  my  own  use,  and  had  placed 
in  the  concealment  of  a  closet  at  its  east 
erly  end  the  largest  electric  fan  I  could  get. 
It  was  ten  feet  in  diameter,  and  was  pro 
vided  with  sixteen  flanges.  When  it  was 
in  motion  not  a  thing  could  withstand  the 
blast  that  came  from  it.  Tables,  chairs, 
even  a  cut-glass  inkstand  weighing  two 
pounds,  were  blown  with  a  crash  against 
the  solid  stone  and  iron  construction  back 
of  the  plaster  of  my  walls.  And  then  I 
awaited  his  coming. 

Suffice  it  to  say  that  he  came,  sat  down 
calmly  and  unsuspecting  in  the  chair  I  had 
had  made  for  his  especial  benefit,  and  then 
the  moment  he  began  to  revile  me  I  turned 
on  the  power,  the  fan  began  to  revolve,  the 
devastating  wind  rushed  down  upon  him 
with  a  roar,  pinned  him  to  the  wall  like  a 
butterfly  on  a  cork,  and  he  was  at  last  my 
prisoner — and  he  is  my  prisoner  still.  For 
106 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

three  weeks  has  that  wheel  been  revolving 
night  and  day,  and  despite  all  his  cunning 
he  cannot  creep  beyond  its  blustering  in 
fluence,  nor  shall  he  ever  creep  therefrom 
while  I  have  six  hundred  dollars  per  annum 
to  pay  for  the  rent  and  cost  of  power  neces 
sary  to  keep  the  fan  going. 

Every  once  in  a  while  I  return  and  gloat 
over  him  ;  and  I  can  tell  by  the  movement 
of  his  lips  that  he  is  trying  to  curse  me,  but 
he  cannot,  for,  even  as  Wilkins's  fan  blew 
his  words  of  remonstrance  back  into  his 
throat,  so  does  my  wheel,  twice  as  powerful, 
keep  his  torrent  of  invective  from  greeting 
my  ear. 

I  should  be  happy  to  prove  the  truth  of 
all  this  by  showing  any  curious -minded 
reader  the  spectacle  which  gives  me  so 
much  joy,  but  I  fear  to  do  so  lest  the  own 
ers  of  the  building,  discovering  the  uses  to 
which  their  office  has  been  put,  shall  require 
me  to  vacate  the  premises. 

Of  course  he  may  ultimately  escape, 
through  some  failure  of  the  machine  to 

o 

operate,  but    it    is   guaranteed   to   run    five 

years  without   a  break,  so   for   that  period 

107 


GHOSTS     1     HAVE     MET 

at  least  I  am  safe,  and  by  that  time  it  may 
be  that  he  will  be   satisfied  to  call  things 

O 

square.     I  shall  be  satisfied  if  he  is. 

Meanwhile,  I  devote  my  successful  plan 
to  the  uses  of  all  who  may  be  troubled  as 
I  was,  finding  in  their  assumed  gratitude  a 
sufficient  compensation  for  my  ingenuity. 


THURLOW'S  CHRISTMAS  STORY 


(Being  the  Statement  of  Henry  Thurlow, 
Author,  to  George  Currier,  Editor  of  the 
"  Idler"  a  Weekly  Journal  of  Human 
Interest?) 

I  HAVE  always  maintained,  my  dear  Cur 
rier,  that  if  a  man  wishes  to  be  considered 
sane,  and  has  any  particular  regard  for  his 
reputation  as  a  truth-teller,  he  would  better 
keep  silent  as  to  the  singular  experiences 
that  enter  into  his  life.  I  have  had  many 
such  experiences  myself ;  but  I  have  rarely 
confided  them  in  detail,  or  otherwise,  to 
those  about  me,  because  I  know  that  even 
the  most  trustful  of  my  friends  would  re 
gard  them  merely  as  the  outcome  of  an  im 
agination  unrestrained  by  conscience,  or 
of  a  gradually  weakening  mind  subject  to 
109 


GHOSTS     I     HAVE    MET 

hallucinations.  I  know  them  to  be  true,  but 
until  Mr.  Edison  or  some  other  modern 
wizard  has  invented  a  search -light  strong 
enough  to  lay  bare  the  secrets  of  the  mind 
and  conscience  of  man,  I  cannot  prove  to 
others  that  they  are  not  pure  fabrications, 
or  at  least  the  conjurings  of  a  diseased 
fancy.  For  instance,  no  man  would  be 
lieve  me  if  I  were  to  state  to  him  the  plain 
and  indisputable  fact  that  one  night  last 
month,  on  my  way  up  to  bed  shortly  after 
midnight,  having  been  neither  smoking  nor 
drinking,  I  saw  confronting  me  upon  the 
stairs,  with  the  moonlight  streaming  through 
the  windows  back  of  me,  lighting  up  its 
face,  a  figure  in  which  I  recognized  my  very 
self  in  every  form  and  feature.  I  might 
describe  the  chill  of  terror  that  struck  to 
the  very  marrow  of  my  bones,  and  wellnigh 
forced  me  to  stagger  backward  down  the 
stairs,  as  I  noticed  in  the  face  of  this  con 
fronting  figure  every  indication  of  all  the 
bad  qualities  which  I  know  myself  to  pos 
sess,  of  every  evil  instinct  which  by  no  easy 
effort  I  have  repressed  heretofore,  and  real 
ized  that  that  thing  was,  as  far  as  I  knew, 
no 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

entirely  independent   of    my   true   self,   in 
which  I  hope  at  least  the  moral  has  made 
an  honest  fight  against  the  immoral  always. 
I  might  describe  this  chill,  I  say,  as  vividly 
as  I  felt  it  at  that  moment,  but  it  would  be 
of  no  use  to  do  so,  because,  however  real 
istic  it  might  prove  as  a  bit  of  description, 
no    man   would    believe    that    the    incident 
really  happened ;  and  yet  it  did  happen  as 
truly  as  I  write,  and  it  has  happened  a  dozen 
times   since,  and   I  am  certain  that  it  will 
happen  many  times  again,  though  I  would 
give  all  that  I  possess  to  be  assured  that 
never  again    should   that  disquieting  crea 
tion  of   mind  or  matter,  whichever  it   may 
be,   cross    my  path.     The   experience    has 
made  me  afraid   almost  to  be  alone,  and  I 
have  found   myself  unconsciously  and  un 
easily  glancing   at    my  face  in   mirrors,  in 
the   plate -glass   of   show-windows  on   the 
shopping  streets  of  the  city,  fearful  lest  I 
should  find  some  of  those  evil  traits  which 
I  have  struggled  to  keep  under,  and  have 
kept  under  so  far,  cropping  out  there  where 
all    the   world,   all  my  world,  can  see   and 
wonder   at,  having  known  me  always  as  a 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

man  of  right  doing  and  right  feeling.  Many 
a  time  in  the  night  the  thought  has  come 
to  me  with  prostrating  force,  what  if  that 
thing  were  to  be  seen  and  recognized  by 
others,  myself  and  yet  not  my  whole  self, 
my  unworthy  self  unrestrained  and  yet  rec 
ognizable  as  Henry  Thurlow. 

I  have  also  kept  silent  as  to  that  strange 
condition  of  affairs  which  has  tortured  me 
in  my  sleep  for  the  past  year  and  a  half ; 
no  one  but  myself  has  until  this  writing 
known  that  for  that  period  of  time  I  have 
had  a  continuous,  logical  dream-life  ;  a  life 
so  vivid  and  so  dreadfully  real  to  me  that 
I  have  found  myself  at  times  wondering 
which  of  the  two  lives  I  was  living  and 
which  I  was  dreaming ;  a  life  in  which  that 
other  wicked  self  has  dominated,  and  forced 
me  to  a  career  of  shame  and  horror ;  a  life 
which,  being  taken  up  every  time  I  sleep 
where  it  ceased  with  the  awakening  from  a 
previous  sleep,  has  made  me  fear  to  close 
my  eyes  in  forgetfulness  when  others  are 
near  at  hand,  lest,  sleeping,  I  shall  let  fall 
some  speech  that,  striking  on  their  ears, 
shall  lead  them  to  believe  that  in  secret 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

there  is  some  wicked  mystery  connected 
with  my  life.  It  would  be  of  no  use  for  me 
to  tell  these  things.  It  would  merely  serve 
to  make  my  family  and  my  friends  uneasy 
about  me  if  they  were  told  in  their  awful 
detail,  and  so  I  have  kept  silent  about  them. 
To  you  alone,  and  now  for  the  first  time, 
have  I  hinted  as  to  the  troubles  which  have 
oppressed  me  for  many  days,  and  to  you 
they  are  confided  only  because  of  the  de 
mand  you  have  made  that  I  explain  to  you 
the  extraordinary  complication  in  which  the 
Christmas  story  sent  you  last  week  has  in 
volved  me.  You  know  that  I  am  a  man  of 
dignity ;  that  I  am  not  a  school-boy  and  a 
lover  of  childish  tricks ;  and  knowing  that, 
your  friendship,  at  least,  should  have  re 
strained  your  tongue  and  pen  when,  through 
the  former,  on  Wednesday,  you  accused  me 
of  perpetrating  a  trifling,  and  to  you  exces 
sively  embarrassing,  practical  joke — a  charge 
which,  at  the  moment,  I  was  too  overcome 
to  refute  ;  and  through  the  latter,  on  Thurs 
day,  you  reiterated  the  accusation,  coupled 
with  a  demand  for  an  explanation  of  my 
conduct  satisfactory  to  yourself,  or  my  im- 
H  113 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE     MET 

mediate  resignation  from  the  staff  of  the 
Idler.  To  explain  is  difficult,  for  I  am  cer 
tain  that  you  will  find  the  explanation  too 
improbable  for  credence,  but  explain  I  must. 
The  alternative,  that  of  resigning  from  your 
staff,  affects  not  only  my  own  welfare,  but 
that  of  my  children,  who  must  be  provided 
for ;  and  if  my  post  with  you  is  taken  from 
me,  then  are  all  resources  gone.  I  have 
not  the  courage  to  face  dismissal,  for  I  have 
not  sufficient  confidence  in  my  powers  to 
please  elsewhere  to  make  me  easy  in  my 
mind,  or,  if  I  could  please  elsewhere,  the 
certainty  of  finding  the  immediate  employ 
ment  of  my  talents  which  is  necessary  to 
me,  in  view  of  the  at  present  overcrowded 
condition  of  the  literary  field. 

To  explain,  then,  my  seeming  jest  at  your 
expense,  hopeless  as  it  appears  to  be,  is  my 
task;  and  to  do  so  as  completely  as  I  can, 
let  me  go  back  to  the  very  beginning. 

In  August  you  informed  me  that  you 
would  expect  me  to  provide,  as  I  have  here 
tofore  been  in  the  habit  of  doing,  a  story 
for  the  Christmas  issue  of  the  Idler ;  that 
a  certain  position  in  the  make-up  was  re- 
114 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

served  for  me,  and  that  you  had  already 
taken  steps  to  advertise  the  fact  that  the 
story  would  appear.  I  undertook  the  com 
mission,  and  upon  seven  different  occasions 
set  about  putting  the  narrative  into  shape. 
I  found  great  difficulty,  however,  in  doing 
so.  For  some  reason  or  other  I  could  not 
concentrate  my  mind  upon  the  work.  No 
sooner  would  I  start  in  on  one  story  than 
a  better  one,  in  my  estimation,  would  sug 
gest  itself  to  me;  and  all  the  labor  expend 
ed  on  the  story  already  begun  would  be 
cast  aside,  and  the  new  story  set  in  motion. 
Ideas  were  plenty  enough,  but  to  put  them 
properly  upon  paper  seemed  beyond  my 
powers.  One  story,  however,  I  did  finish  ; 
but  after  it  had  come  back  to  me  from  my 
typewriter  I  read  it,  and  was  filled  with 
consternation  to  discover  that  it  was  noth 
ing  more  nor  less  than  a  mass  of  jumbled 
sentences,  conveying  no  idea  to  the  mind — 
a  story  which  had  seemed  to  me  in  the  writ 
ing  to  be  coherent  had  returned  to  me  as  a 
mere  bit  of  incoherence — formless,  without 
ideas — a  bit  of  raving.  It  was  then  that  I 
went  to  you  and  told  you,  as  you  remember, 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE     MET 

that  I  was  worn  out,  and  needed  a  month 
of  absolute  rest,  which  you  granted.  I  left 
my  work  wholly,  and  went  into  the  wilder 
ness,  where  I  could  be  entirely  free  from 
everything  suggesting  labor,  and  where  no 
summons  back  to  town  could  reach  me.  I 
fished  and  hunted.  I  slept ;  and  although, 
as  I  have  already  said,  in  my  sleep  I  found 
myself  leading  a  life  that  was  not  only  not 
to  my  taste,  but  horrible  to  me  in  many  par 
ticulars,  I  was  able  at  the  end  of  my  vaca 
tion  to  come  back  to  town  greatly  refreshed, 
and,  as  far  as  my  feelings  went,  ready  to 
undertake  any  amount  of  work.  For  two 
or  three  days  after  my  return  I  was  busy 
with  other  things.  On  the  fourth  day  after 
my  arrival  you  came  to  me,  and  said  that 
the  story  must  be  finished  at  the  very  latest 
by  October  i5th,  and  I  assured  you  that 
you  should  have  it  by  that  time.  That  night 
I  set  about  it.  I  mapped  it  out,  incident 
by  incident,  and  before  starting  up  to  bed 
had  actually  written  some  twelve  or  fifteen 
hundred  words  of  the  opening  chapter — it 
was  to  be  told  in  four  chapters.  When  I 
had  gone  thus  far  I  experienced  a  slight 
116 


FACE   TO    FACE 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

return  of  one  of  my  nervous  chills,  and,  on 
consulting  my  watch,  discovered  that  it  was 
after  midnight,  which  was  a  sufficient  ex 
planation  of  my  nervousness  :  I  was  merely 
tired.  I  arranged  my  manuscripts  on  my 
table  so  that  I  might  easily  take  up  the 
work  the  following  morning.  I  locked  up 
the  windows  and  doors,  turned  out  the  lights, 
and  proceeded  up-stairs  to  my  room. 

//  was  then  that  I  first  came  face  to  face 
with  myself — that  other  self,  in  which  I  rec 
ognized,  developed  to  the  full,  (very  bit  of  my 
capacity  for  an  evil  life. 

Conceive  of  the  situation  if  you  can. 
Imagine  the  horror  of  it,  and  then  ask  your 
self  if  it  was  likely  that  when  next  morning 
came  I  could  by  any  possibility  bring  my 
self  to  my  work-table  in  fit  condition  to  pre 
pare  for  you  anything  at  all  worthy  of  pub 
lication  in  the  Idler.  I  tried.  I  implore 
you  to  believe  that  I  did  not  hold  lightly 
the  responsibilities  of  the  commission  you 
had  intrusted  to  my  hands.  You  must  know 
that  if  any  of  your  writers  has  a  full  appre 
ciation  of  the  difficulties  which  are  strewn 
along  the  path  of  an  editor,  I,  who  have 
117 


GHOSTS    1    HAVE     MET 

myself  had  an  editorial  experience,  have  it, 
and  so  would  not,  in  the  nature  of  things, 
do  anything  to  add  to  your  troubles.  You 
cannot  but  believe  that  I  have  made  an 
honest  effort  to  fulfil  my  promise  to  you. 
But  it  was  useless,  and  for  a  week  after  that 
visitation  was  it  useless  for  me  to  attempt 
the  work.  At  the  end  of  the  week  I  felt 
better,  and  again  I  started  in,  and  the  story 
developed  satisfactorily  until— //came  again. 
That  figure  which  was  my  own  figure,  that 
face  which  was  the  evil  counterpart  of  my 
own  countenance,  again  rose  up  before  me, 
and  once  more  was  I  plunged  into  hope 
lessness. 

Thus  matters  went  on  until  the  i4th  day 
of  October,  when  I  received  your  peremp 
tory  message  that  the  story  must  be  forth 
coming  the  following  day.  Needless  to  tell 
you  that  it  was  not  forthcoming;  but  what 
I  must  tell  you,  since  you  do  not  know  it, 
is  that  on  the  evening  of  the  i5th  day  of 
October  a  strange  thing  happened  to  me, 
and  in  the  narration  of  that  incident,  which 
I  almost  despair  of  your  believing,  lies  my 
explanation  of  the  discovery  of  October 
118 


AND    SOME     OTHERS 

i6th,  which  has  placed  my  position  with 
you  in  peril. 

At  half-past  seven  o'clock  on  the  evening 
of  October  i5th  I  was  sitting  in  my  library 
trying  to  write.  I  was  alone.  My  wife  and 
children  had  gone  away  on  a  visit  to  Mas 
sachusetts  for  a  week.  I  had  just  finished 
my  cigar,  and  had  taken  my  pen  in  hand, 
when  my  front-door  bell  rang.  Our  maid, 
who  is  usually  prompt  in  answering  sum 
monses  of  this  nature,  apparently  did  not 
hear  the  bell,  for  she  did  not  respond  to  its 
clanging.  Again  the  bell  rang,  and  still 
did  it  remain  unanswered,  until  finally,  at 
the  third  ringing,  I  went  to  the  door  myself. 
On  opening  it  I  saw  standing  before  me  a 
man  of,  I  should  say,  fifty  odd  years  of  age, 
tall,  slender,  pale-faced,  and  clad  in  sombre 
black.  He  was  entirely  unknown  to  me. 
I  had  never  seen  him  before,  but  he  had 
about  him  such  an  air  of  pleasantness  and 
wholesomeness  that  I  instinctively  felt  glad 
to  see  him,  without  knowing  why  or  whence 
he  had  come. 

"  Does  Mr.  Thurlow  live  here  ?"  he  asked. 

You  must  excuse  me  for  going  into  what 
119 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE     MET 

may  seem  to  you  to  be  petty  details,  but  by 
a  perfectly  circumstantial  account  of  all  that 
happened  that  evening  alone  can  I  hope 
to  give  a  semblance  of  truth  to  my  story, 
and  that  it  must  be  truthful  I  realize  as 
painfully  as  you  do. 

"  I  am  Mr.  Thurlow,"  I  replied. 

"Henry  Thurlow,  the  author?"  he  said, 
with  a  surprised  look  upon  his  face. 

"  Yes,"  said  I ;  and  then,  impelled  by 
the  strange  appearance  of  surprise  on  the 
man's  countenance,  I  added,  "  don't  I  look 
like  an  author  ?" 

He  laughed,  and  candidly  admitted  that 
I  was  not  the  kind  of  looking  man  he  had 
expected  to  find  from  reading  my  books, 
and  then  he  entered  the  house  in  response 
to  my  invitation  that  he  do  so.  I  ushered 
him  into  my  library,  and,  after  asking  him 
to  be  seated,  inquired  as  to  his  business 
with  me. 

His  answer  was  gratifying  at  least.  He 
replied  that  he  had  been  a  reader  of  my 
writings  for  a  number  of  years,  and  that  for 
some  time  past  he  had  had  a  great  desire, 
not  to  say  curiosity,  to  meet  me  and  tell 

120 


AND    SOME     OTHERS 

me  how  much  he  had  enjoyed  certain  of 
my  stories. 

"  I'm  a  great  devourer  of  books,  Mr. 
Thurlow,"  he  said,  "  and  I  have  taken  the 
keenest  delight  in  reading  your  verses  and 
humorous  sketches.  I  may  go  further,  and 
say  to  you  that  you  have  helped  me  over 
many  a  hard  place  in  my  life  by  your  work. 
At  times  when  I  have  felt  myself  worn  out 
with  my  business,  or  face  to  face  with  some 
knotty  problem  in  my  career,  I  have  found 
much  relief  in  picking  up  and  reading  your 
books  at  random.  They  have  helped  me  to 
forget  my  weariness  or  my  knotty  problems 
for  the  time  being  ;  and  to-day,  finding  my 
self  in  this  town,  I  resolved  to  call  upon 
you  this  evening  and  thank  you  for  all  that 
you  have  done  for  me." 

Thereupon  we  became  involved  in  a  gen 
eral  discussion  of  literary  men  and  their 
works,  and  I  found  that  my  visitor  certain 
ly  did  have  a  pretty  thorough  knowledge  of 
what  has  been  produced  by  the  writers  of 
to-day.  I  was  quite  won  over  to  him  by  his 
simplicity,  as  well  as  attracted  to  him  by  his 
kindly  opinion  of  my  own  efforts,  and  I  did 

121 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE     MET 

my  best  to  entertain  him,  showing  him  a 
few  of  my  little  literary  treasures  in  the  way 
of  autograph  letters,  photographs,  and  pres 
entation  copies  of  well-known  books  from 
the  authors  themselves.  From  this  we  drift 
ed  naturally  and  easily  into  a  talk  on  the 
methods  of  work  adopted  by  literary  men. 
He  asked  me  many  questions  as  to  my  own 
methods ;  and  when  I  had  in  a  measure 
outlined  to  him  the  manner  of  life  which  I 
had  adopted,  telling  him  of  my  days  at 
home,  how  little  detail  office -work  I  had, 
he  seemed  much  interested  with  the  pict 
ure — indeed,  I  painted  the  picture  of  my 
daily  routine  in  almost  too  perfect  colors, 
for,  when  I  had  finished,  he  observed  quiet 
ly  that  I  appeared  to  him  to  lead  the  ideal 
life,  and  added  that  he  supposed  I  knew 
very  little  unhappiness. 

The  remark  recalled  to  me  the  dreadful 
reality,  that  through  some  perversity  of  fate 
I  was  doomed  to  visitations  of  an  uncanny 
order  which  were  practically  destroying  my 
usefulness  in  my  profession  and  my  sole 
financial  resource. 

"  Well,"  I  replied,  as  my  mind  reverted 

122 


AND     SOME     OTHERS 

to  the  unpleasant  predicament  in  which  I 
found  myself,  "  I  can't  say  that  I  know 
little  unhappiness.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I 
know  a  great  deal  of  that  undesirable  thing. 
At  the  present  moment  1  am  very  much 
embarrassed  through  my  absolute  inability 
to  fulfil  a  contract  into  which  I  have  entered, 
and  which  should  have  been  filled  this 
morning.  I  was  due  to-day  with  a  Christ 
mas  story.  The  presses  are  waiting  for  it, 
and  I  am  utterly  unable  to  write  it." 

He  appeared  deeply  concerned  at  the 
confession.  I  had  hoped,  indeed,  that  he 
might  be  sufficiently  concerned  to  take  his 
departure,  that  I  might  make  one  more  ef 
fort  to  write  the  promised  story.  His  so 
licitude,  however,  showed  itself  in  another 
way.  Instead  of  leaving  me,  he  ventured 
the  hope  that  he  might  aid  me. 

"  What  kind  of  a  story  is  it  to  be  ?"  he 
asked. 

"  Oh,  the  usual  ghostly  tale,"  I  said,  "  with 
a  clash  of  the  Christmas  flavor  thrown  in  here 
and  there  to  make  it  suitable  to  the  season." 

"  Ah,"  he  observed.  "  And  you  find  your 
vein  worked  out  ?" 

123 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

It  was  a  direct  and  perhaps  an  imperti 
nent  question ;  but  I  thought  it  best  to 
answer  it,  and  to  answer  it  as  well  without 
giving  him  any  clew  as  to  the  real  facts.  I 
could  not  very  well  take  an  entire  stranger 
into  my  confidence,  and  describe  to  him 
the  extraordinary  encounters  I  was  having 
with  an  uncanny  other  self.  He  would  not 
have  believed  the  truth,  hence  I  told  him 
an  untruth,  and  assented  to  his  proposition. 
"  Yes,"  I  replied,  "  the  vein  is  worked 
out.  I  have  written  ghost  stories  for  years 
now,  serious  and  comic,  and  I  am  to-day 
at  the  end  of  my  tether — compelled  to  move 
forward  and  yet  held  back." 

"  That  accounts  for  it,"  he  said,  simply. 
"When  I  first  saw  you  to-night  at  the  door 
I  could  not  believe  that  the  author  who  had 
provided  me  with  so  much  merriment  could 
be  so  pale  and  worn  and  seemingly  mirth 
less.  Pardon  me,  Mr.  Thurlow,  for  my  lack 
of  consideration  when  I  told  you  that  you 
did  not  appear  as  I  had  expected  to  find 
you." 

I  smiled  my  forgiveness,  and  he  contin 
ued  : 

124 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

"  It  may  be,"  he  said,  with  a  show  of 
hesitation — "  it  may  be  that  I  have  come 
not  altogether  inopportunely.  Perhaps  I 
can  help  you." 

I  smiled  again.  "  I  should  be  most  grate 
ful  if  you  could,"  I  said. 

"  But  you  doubt  my  ability  to  do  so  ?" 
he  put  in.  "Oh  —  well  —  yes — of  course 
you  do ;  and  why  shouldn't  you  ?  Never 
theless,  I  have  noticed  this:  At  times  when 
I  have  been  baffled  in  my  work  a  mere  hint 
from  another,  from  one  who  knew  nothing 
of  my  work,  has  carried  me  on  to  a  solution 
of  my  problem.  I  have  read  most  of  your 
writings,  and  I  have  thought  over  some  of 
them  many  a  time,  and  I  have  even  had 
ideas  for  stories,  which,  in  my  own  conceit, 
I  have  imagined  were  good  enough  for  you, 
and  I  have  wished  that  I  possessed  your 
facility  with  the  pen  that  I  might  make  of 
them  myself  what  I  thought  you  would 
make  of  them  had  they  been  ideas  of  your 
own." 

The  old  gentleman's  pallid  face  reddened 
as  he  said  this,  and  while  I  was  hopeless  as 
to  anything  of  value  resulting  from  his  ideas, 
125 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE     MET 

I  could  not  resist  the  temptation  to  hear 
what  he  had  to  say  further,  his  manner  was 
so  deliciously  simple,  and  his  desire  to  aid 
me  so  manifest.  He  rattled  on  with  sug 
gestions  for  a  half -hour.  Some  of  them 
were  srood,  but  none  were  new.  Some  were 

o 

irresistibly  funny,  and  did  me  good  because 
they  made  me  laugh,  and  I  hadn't  laughed 
naturally  for  a  period  so  long  that  it  made 
me  shudder  to  think  of  it,  fearing  lest  I 
should  forget  how  to  be  mirthful.  Finally 
I  grew  tired  of  his  persistence,  and,  with  a 
very  ill -concealed  impatience,  told  him 
plainly  that  I  could  do  nothing  with  his 
suggestions,  thanking  him,  however,  for  the 
spirit  of  kindliness  which  had  prompted 
him  to  offer  them.  He  appeared  somewhat 
hurt,  but  immediately  desisted,  and  when 
nine  o'clock  came  he  rose  up  to  go.  As  he 
walked  to  the  door  he  seemed  to  be  under 
going  some  mental  struggle,  to  which,  with 
a  sudden  resolve,  he  finally  succumbed,  for, 
after  having  picked  up  his  hat  and  stick 
and  donned  his  overcoat,  he  turned  to  me 
and  said  : 

"Mr.  Thurlow,  I   don't    want  to   offend 
126 


"HE    RATTLED    ON    FOR    HALF   AN    HOUR 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

you.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  my  dearest 
wish  to  assist  you.  You  have  helped  me, 
as  I  have  told  you.  Why  may  I  not  help 
you  ?" 

"  I  assure  you,  sir—"  I  began,  when  he 
interrupted  me. 

"One  moment,  please,"  he  said,  putting 
his  hand  into  the  inside  pocket  of  his  black 
coat  and  extracting  from  it  an  envelope 
addressed  to  me.  "Let  me  finish:  it  is  the 
whim  of  one  who  has  an  affection  for  you. 
For  ten  years  I  have  secretly  been  at  work 
myself  on  a  story.  It  is  a  short  one,  but  it 
has  seemed  good  to  me.  I  had  a  double 
object  in  seeking  you  out  to-night.  I  wanted 
not  only  to  see  you,  but  to  read  my  story 
to  you.  No  one  knows  that  I  have  written 
it ;  I  had  intended  it  as  a  surprise  to  my— 
to  my  friends.  I  had  hoped  to  have  it  pub 
lished  somewhere,  and  I  had  come  here  to 
seek  your  advice  in  the  matter.  It  is  a 
story  which  I  have  written  and  rewritten 
and  rewritten  time  and  time  again  in  my 
leisure  moments  during  the  ten  years  past, 
as  I  have  told  you.  It  is  not  likely  that  I 
shall  ever  write  another.  I  am  proud  of 
127 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

having  done  it,  but  I  should  be  prouder  yet 
if  it — if  it  could  in  some  way  help  you.  I 
leave  it  with  you,  sir,  to  print  or  to  destroy ; 
and  if  you  print  it,  to  see  it  in  type  will  be 
enough  for  me ;  to  see  your  name  signed  to 
it  will  be  a  matter  of  pride  to  me.  No  one 
will  ever  be  the  wiser,  for,  as  I  say,  no  one 
knows  I  have  written  it,  and  I  promise  you 
that  no  one  shall  know  of  it  if  you  decide 
to  do  as  I  not  only  suggest  but  ask  you  to 
do.  No  one  would  believe  me  after  it  has 
appeared  as  yours,  even  if  I  should  forget 
my  promise  and  claim  it  as  my  own.  Take 
it.  It  is  yours.  You  are  entitled  to  it  as  a 
slight  measure  of  repayment  for  the  debt 
of  gratitude  I  owe  you." 

He  pressed  the  manuscript  into  my  hands, 
and  before  I  could  reply  had  opened  the 
door  and  disappeared  into  the  darkness  of 
the  street.  I  rushed  to  the  sidewalk  and 
shouted  out  to  him  to  return,  but  I  might 
as  well  have  saved  my  breath  and  spared 
the  neighborhood,  for  there  was  no  answer. 
Holding  his  story  in  my  hand,  I  re-entered 
the  house  and  walked  back  into  my  library, 
where,  sitting  and  reflecting  upon  the  cu- 
128 


"THE    DEMON    VANISHED 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

rious  interview,  I  realized  for  the  first  time 
that  I  was  in  entire  ignorance  as  to  my  vis 
itor's  name  and  address. 

I  opened  the  envelope  hoping  to  find 
them,  but  they  were  not  there.  The  en 
velope  contained  merely  a  finely  written 
manuscript  of  thirty  odd  pages,  unsigned. 

And  then  I  read  the  story.  When  I  be 
gan  it  was  with  a  half-smile  upon  my  lips, 
and  with  a  feeling  that  I  was  wasting  my 
time.  The  smile  soon  faded,  however ; 
after  reading  the  first  paragraph  there  was 
no  question  of  wasted  time.  The  story  was 
a  masterpiece.  It  is  needless  to  say  to 
you  that  I  am  not  a  man  of  enthusiasms. 
It  is  difficult  to  arouse  that  emotion  in  my 
breast,  but  upon  this  occasion  I  yielded  to 
a  force  too  great  for  me  to  resist.  I  have 
read  the  tales  of  Hoffmann  and  of  Foe,  the 
wondrous  romances  of  De  La  Motte  Fouque, 
the  unfortunately  little-known  tales  of  the 
lamented  Fitz- James  O'Brien,  the  weird 
tales  of  writers  of  all  tongues  have  been 
thoroughly  sifted  by  me  in  the  course  of 
my  reading,  and  I  say  to  you  now  that  in 
the  whole  of  my  life  I  never  read  one  story, 
i  129 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

one  paragraph,  one  line,  that  could  ap 
proach  in  vivid  delineation,  in  weirdness  of 
conception,  in  anything,  in  any  quality  which 
goes  to  make  up  the  truly  great  story,  that 
story  which  came  into  my  hands  as  I  have 
told  you.  1  read  it  once  and  was  amazed. 
I  read  it  a  second  time  and  was — tempted. 
It  was  mine.  The  writer  himself  had  au 
thorized  me  to  treat  it  as  if  it  were  my  own ; 
had  voluntarily  sacrificed  his  own  claim  to 
its  authorship  that  he  might  relieve  me  of 
my  very  pressing  embarrassment.  Not  only 
this  ;  he  had  almost  intimated  that  in  put 
ting  my  name  to  his  work  I  should  be  doing 
him  a  favor.  Why  not  do  so,  then,  I  asked 
myself ;  and  immediately  my  better  self  re 
jected  the  idea  as  impossible.  How  could 
I  put  out  as  my  own  another  man's  work 
and  retain  my  self-respect  ?  I  resolved  on 
another  and  better  course — to  send  you  the 
story  in  lieu  of  my  own  with  a  full  state 
ment  of  the  circumstances  under  which  it 
had  come  into  my  possession,  when  that 
demon  rose  up  out  of  the  floor  at  my  side, 
this  time  more  evil  of  aspect  than  before, 
more  commanding  in  its  manner.  With  a 
130 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

groan  I  shrank  back  into  the  cushions  of 
my  chair,  and  by  passing  my  hands  over  my 
eyes  tried  to  obliterate  forever  the  offend 
ing  sight;  but  it  was  useless.  The  uncanny 
thing  approached  me,  and  as  truly  as  I 
write  sat  upon  the  edge  of  my  couch,  where 
for  the  first  time  it  addressed  me. 

"  Fool !"  it  said,  "  how  can  you  hesitate  ? 
Here  is  your  position  :  you  have  made  a 
contract  which  must  be  filled ;  you  are  al 
ready  behind,  and  in  a  hopeless  mental 
state.  Even  granting  that  between  this  and 
to-morrow  morning  you  could  put  together 
the  necessary  number  of  words  to  fill  the 
space  allotted  to  you,  what  kind  of  a  thing 
do  you  think  that  story  would  make  ?  It 
would  be  a  mere  raving  like  that  other  pre 
cious  effort  of  August.  The  public,  if  by 
some  odd  chance  it  ever  reached  them, 
would  think  your  mind  was  utterly  gone  ; 
your  reputation  would  go  with  that  verdict. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  you  do  not  have  the 
story  ready  by  to-morrow,  your  hold  on  the 
Idler  will  be  destroyed.  They  have  their 
announcements  printed,  and  your  name  and 
portrait  appear  among  those  of  the  promi- 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

nent  contributors.  Do  you  suppose  the 
editor  and  publisher  will  look  leniently 
upon  your  failure  ?" 

"  Considering  my  past  record,  yes,"  I 
replied.  "  I  have  never  yet  broken  a  prom 
ise  to  them." 

"  Which  is  precisely  the  reason  why  they 
will  be  severe  with  you.  You,  who  have 
been  regarded  as  one  of  the  few  men  who 
can  do  almost  any  kind  of  literary  work  at 
will  —  you,  of  whom  it  is  said  that  your 
*  brains  are  on  tap ' — will  they  be  lenient 
with  you  ?  Bah  !  Can't  you  see  that  the 
very  fact  of  your  invariable  readiness  here 
tofore  is  going  to  make  your  present  un 
readiness  a  thing  incomprehensible  ?'' 

"  Then  what  shall  I  do  ?"  I  asked.  "  If 
I  can't,  I  can't,  that  is  all." 

"  You  can.  There  is  the  story  in  your 
hands.  Think  what  it  will  do  for  you.  It 
is  one  of  the  immortal  stories — 

;'  You  have  read  it,  then  ?"  I  asked. 

"  Haven't  you  ?" 

"  Yes—but—" 

"  It  is  the  same,"  it  said,  with  a  leer  and 
a  contemptuous  shrug.  "  You  and  I  are 
132 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

inseparable.  Aren't  you  glad  ?''  it  added, 
with  a  laugh  that  grated  on  every  fibre  of 
my  being.  I  was  too  overwhelmed  to  reply, 
and  it  resumed  :  "  It  is  one  of  the  immortal 
stories.  We  agree  to  that.  Published  over 
your  name,  your  name  will  live.  The  stuff 
you  write  yourself  will  give  you  present 
glory ;  but  when  you  have  been  dead  ten 
years  people  won't  remember  your  name 
even — unless  I  get  control  of  you,  and  in 
that  case  there  is  a  very  pretty  though 
hardly  a  literary  record  in  store  for  you." 

Again  it  laughed  harshly,  and  I  buried  my 
face  in  the  pillows  of  my  couch,  hoping  to 
find  relief  there  from  this  dreadful  vision. 

"  Curious,"  it  said.  "  What  you  call  your 
decent  self  doesn't  dare  look  me  in  the  eye  ! 
What  a  mistake  people  make  who  say  that 
the  man  who  won't  look  you  in  the  eye  is 
not  to  be  trusted  !  As  if  mere  brazenness 
were  a  sign  of  honesty ;  really,  the  theory 
of  decency  is  the  most  amusing  thing  in  the 
world.  But  come,  time  is  growing  short. 
Take  that  story.  The  writer  gave  it  to  you. 
Begged  you  to  use  it  as  your  own.  It  is 
yours.  It  will  make  your  reputation,  and 
133 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

save  you  with  your  publishers.  How  can 
you  hesitate  ?" 

"  I  shall  not  use  it !"  I  cried,  desper 
ately. 

"You  must  —  consider  your  children. 
Suppose  you  lose  your  connection  with 
these  publishers  of  yours  ?" 

"  But  it  would  be  a  crime." 

"  Not  a  bit  of  it.  Whom  do  you  rob  ? 
A  man  who  voluntarily  came  to  you,  and 
gave  you  that  of  which  you  rob  him.  Think 
of  it  as  it  is — and  act,  only  act  quickly.  It 
is  now  midnight." 

The  tempter  rose  up  and  walked  to  the 
other  end  of  the  room,  whence,  while  he 
pretended  to  be  looking  over  a  few  of  my 
books  and  pictures,  I  was  aware  he  was 
eying  me  closely,  and  gradually  compel 
ling  me  by  sheer  force  of  will  to  do  a  thing 
which  I  abhorred.  And  I  — I  struggled 
weakly  against  the  temptation,  but  grad 
ually,  little  by  little,  I  yielded,  and  finally 
succumbed  altogether.  Springing  to  my 
feet,  I  rushed  to  the  table,  seized  my  pen, 
and  signed  my  name  to  the  story. 

"  There  !"  I  said.  "  It  is  done.  I  have 
i34 


''DOESN'T  DARE  LOOK  ME  IN  THE  EYE!' 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

saved  my  position  and  made  my  reputation, 
and  am  now  a  thief  !" 

"  As  well  as  a  fool,"  said  the  other,  calm 
ly.  "  You  don't  mean  to  say  you  are  going 
to  send  that  manuscript  in  as  it  is  ?" 

"Good  Lord!"  I  cried.  "What  under 
heaven  have  you  been  trying  to  make  me 
do  for  the  last  half  hour  ?" 

"Act  like  a  sane  being,"  said  the  demon. 
"  If  you  send  that  manuscript  to  Currier 
he'll  know  in  a  minute  it  isn't  yours.  He 
knows  you  haven't  an  amanuensis,  and  that 
handwriting  isn't  yours.  Copy  it." 

"  True  !"  I  answered.  "  I  haven't  much 
of  a  mind  for  details  to-night.  I  will  do  as 
you  say." 

I  did  so.  I  got  out  my  pad  and  pen  and 
ink,  and  for  three  hours  diligently  applied 
myself  to  the  task  of  copying  the  story. 
When  it  was  finished  I  went  over  it  care 
fully,  made  a  few  minor  corrections,  signed 
it,  put  it  in  an  envelope,  addressed  it  to  you, 
stamped  it,  and  went  out  to  the  mail-box  on 
the  corner,  where  I  dropped  it  into  the  slot, 
and  returned  home.  When  I  had  return 
ed  to  my  library  my  visitor  was  still  there. 
i35 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE     MET 

"  Well,"  it  said,  "  I  wish  you'd  hurry  and 
complete  this  affair.  I  am  tired,  and  wish 
to  go." 

"  You  can't  go  too  soon  to  please  me," 
said  I,  gathering  up  the  original  manuscripts 
of  the  story  and  preparing  to  put  them  away 
in  my  desk. 

"  Probably  not,"  it  sneered.  "  I'll  be 
glad  to  go  too,  but  I  can't  go  until  that 
manuscript  is  destroyed.  As  long  as  it 
exists  there  is  evidence  of  your  having  ap 
propriated  the  work  of  another.  Why,  can't 
you  see  that  ?  Burn  it !" 

"  I  can't  see  my  way  clear  in  crime  !"  I 
retorted.  "  It  is  not  in  my  line." 

Nevertheless,  realizing  the  value  of  his 
advice,  I  thrust  the  pages  one  by  one  into 
the  blazing  log  fire,  and  watched  them  as 
they  flared  and  flamed  and  grew  to  ashes. 
As  the  last  page  disappeared  in  the  embers 
the  demon  vanished.  I  was  alone,  and 
throwing  myself  down  for  a  moment's  reflec 
tion  upon  my  couch,  was  soon  lost  in  sleep. 

It  was   noon  when   I   again   opened  my 
eyes,  and,  ten    minutes   after   I   awakened, 
your  telegraphic  summons  reached  me. 
136 


AND    SOME     OTHERS 

"  Come  clown  at  once,"  was  what  you 
said,  and  I  went ;  and  then  came  the  ter 
rible  denouement,  and  yet  a  denouement  which 
was  pleasing  to  me  since  it  relieved  my  con 
science.  You  handed  me  the  envelope  con 
taining  the  story. 

"  Did  you  send  that  ?"  was  your  ques 
tion. 

"  I  did — last  night,  or  rather  early  this 
morning.  I  mailed  it  about  three  o'clock," 
I  replied. 

"  I  demand  an  explanation  of  your  con 
duct,"  said  you. 

"  Of  what  ?"  I  asked. 

"  Look  at  your  so-called  story  and  see. 
If  this  is  a  practical  joke,  Thurlow,  it's  a 
damned  poor  one." 

I  opened  the  envelope  and  took  from  it 
the  sheets  I  had  sent  you— twenty-four  of 
them. 

They  were  every  one  of  tJicm  as  blank  as 
when  they  left  the  paper-mill! 

You   know  the   rest.     You   know  that   I 

tried   to   speak  ;    that   my   utterance   failed 

me  ;  and  that,  finding  myself  unable  at  the 

time  to  control  my  emotions,  I  turned  and 

i37 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE     MET 

rushed  madly  from  the  office,  leaving  the 
mystery  unexplained.  You  know  that  you 
wrote  demanding  a  satisfactory  explanation 
of  the  situation  or  my  resignation  from 
your  staff. 

This,  Currier,  is  my  explanation.  It  is 
all  I  have.  It  is  absolute  truth.  I  beg 
you  to  believe  it,  for  if  you  do  not,  then  is 
my  condition  a  hopeless  one.  You  will  ask 
me  perhaps  for  a  resume  of  the  story  which 
I  thought  I  had  sent  you. 

It  is  my  crowning  misfortune  that  upon 
that  point  my  mind  is  an  absolute  blank. 
I  cannot  remember  it  in  form  or  in  sub 
stance.  I  have  racked  my  brains  for  some 
recollection  of  some  small  portion  of  it  to 
help  to  make  my  explanation  more  credible, 
but,  alas  !  it  will  not  come  back  to  me.  If 
I  were  dishonest  I  might  fake  up  a  story 
to  suit  the  purpose,  but  I  am  not  dishonest. 
I  came  near  to  doing  an  unworthy  act ;  I 
did  do  an  unworthy  thing,  but  by  some 
mysterious  provision  of  fate  my  conscience 
is  cleared  of  that. 

Be  sympathetic,  Currier,  or,  if  you  cannot, 
be  lenient  with  me  this  time.  Believe,  be- 
138 


LOOK    AT    YOUR    SO-CALLED    STORY    AND    SEE 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

lieve,  believe,  I   implore  you.     Pray  let  me 
hear  from  you  at  once. 

(Signed)  HENRY  THURLOW. 


II 

(Being  a  Note  from  George  Currier,  Editor  of 
the  "  Idler"  to  Henry  Tlmrlow,  Author.) 

YOUR  explanation  has  come  to  hand.  As 
an  explanation  it  isn't  worth  the  paper  it  is 
written  on,  but  we  are  all  agreed  here  that 
it  is  probably  the  best  bit  of  fiction  you  ever 
wrote.  It  is  accepted  for  the  Christinas 
issue.  Enclosed  please  find  check  for  one 
hundred  dollars. 

Dawson  suggests  that  you  take  another 
month  up  in  the  Adirondacks.  You  might 
put  in  your  time  writing  up  some  account 
of  that  dream-life  you  are  leading  while  you 
are  there.  It  seems  to  me  there  are  possi 
bilities  in  the  idea.  The  concern  will  pay 
all  expenses.  What  do  you  say  ? 

(Signed)  Yours  ever,        G.  C. 


THE   DAMPMERE   MYSTERY 

DAWSON  wished  to  be  alone;  he  had  a 
tremendous  bit  of  writing  to  do,  which  could 
not  be  done  in  New  York,  where  his  friends 
were  constantly  interrupting  him,  and  that 
is  why  he  had  taken  the  little  cottage  at 
Dampmere  for  the  early  spring  months. 
The  cottage  just  suited  him.  It  was  re 
mote  from  the  village  of  Dampmere,  and 
the  rental  was  suspiciously  reasonable  ;  he 
could  have  had  a  ninety-nine  years'  lease 
of  it  for  nothing,  had -he  chosen  to  ask  for 
it,  and  would  promise  to  keep  the  premises 
in  repair  ;  but  he  was  not  aware  of  that  fact 
when  he  made  his  arrangements  with  the 
agent.  Indeed,  there  was  a  great  deal  that 
Dawson  was  not  aware  of  when  he  took  the 
place.  If  there  hadn't  been  he  never  would 
have  thought  of  going  there,  and  this  story 
would  not  have  been  written. 
140 


GHOSTS    I     HAVfc     MhT 

It  was  late  in  March  when,  with  his 
Chinese  servant  and  his  mastiff,  he  en 
tered  into  possession  and  began  the  writ 
ing  of  the  story  he  had  in  mind.  It  was 
to  be  the  effort  of  his  life.  People  reading 
it  would  forget  Thackeray  and  everybody 
else,  and  would,  furthermore,  never  wish 
to  see  another  book.  It  was  to  be  the 
literature  of  all  time — past  and  present  and 
future ;  in  it  all  previous  work  was  to  be 
forgotten,  all  future  work  was  to  be  ren 
dered  unnecessary. 

For  three  weeks  everything  went  smoothly 
enough,  and  the  work  upon  the  great  story 
progressed  to  the  author's  satisfaction  ; 
but  as  Easter  approached  something  queer 
seemed  to  develop  in  the  Dampmere  cot 
tage.  It  was  undennable,  intangible,  in 
visible,  but  it  was  there.  Dawson's  hair 
would  not  stay  down.  When  he  rose  up 
in  the  morning  he  would  find  every  single 
hair  on  his  head  standing  erect,  and  plaster 
it  as  he  would  with  his  brushes  dipped  in 
water,  it  could  not  be  induced  to  lie  down 
again.  More  inconvenient  than  this,  his 
silken  mustache  was  affected  in  the  same 
141 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE     MET 

way,  so  that  instead  of  drooping  in  a  soft 
fascinating  curl  over  his  lip,  it  also  rose  up 
like  a  row  of  bayonets  and  lay  flat  against 
either  side  of  his  nose  ;  and  with  this  sin 
gular  hirsute  affliction  there  came  into  Daw- 
son's  heart  a  feeling  of  apprehension  over 
something,  he  knew  not  what,  that  speed 
ily  developed  into  an  uncontrollable  terror 
that  pervaded  his  whole   being,  and  more 
thoroughly  destroyed    his    ability  to  work 
upon  his  immortal  story  than  ten  inconsid 
erate  New  York  friends  dropping  in  on  him 
in  his  busy  hours  could  possibly  have  done. 
"  What   the  dickens   is   the   matter  with 
me  ?"  he  said  to  himself,  as  for  the  sixteenth 
time  he  brushed  his  rebellious  locks.   "  What 
has  come  over  my  hair  ?    And  what  under 
the  sun  am  I  afraid  of?    The  idea  of  a  man 
of    my  size  looking  under  the    bed    every 
night   for— for  something — burglar,  spook, 
or  what    I   don't   know.     Waking   at   mid 
night  shivering  with    fear,  walking   in   the 
broad   light  of  day  filled  with  terror ;    by 
Jove !    I    almost   wish    I   was    Chung   Lee 
down   in  the  kitchen,  who  goes  about  his 
business  undisturbed." 
142 


IT    WAS   TO    BE    THE    EFFORT    OF    HIS    LIFE 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

Having  said  this,  Dawson  looked  about 
him  nervously.  If  he  had  expected  a  dag 
ger  to  be  plunged  into  his  back  by  an  un 
seen  foe  he  could  not  have  looked  around 
more  anxiously ;  and  then  he  fled,  actually 
fled  in  terror  into  the  kitchen,  where  Chung 
Lee  was  preparing  his  dinner.  Chung  was 
only  a  Chinaman,  but  he  was  a  living  creat 
ure,  and  Dawson  was  afraid  to  be  alone. 

"  Well,  Chung,"  he  said,  as  affably  as  he 
could,  "this  is  a  pleasant  change  from  New 
York,  eh  ?" 

"  Plutty  good,"  replied  Chung,  with  a  va 
cant  stare  at  the  pantry  door.  "  Me  likes 
Noo  Lork  allee  same.  Dampeernere  kind 
of  flunny,  Mister  Dawson." 

"  Funny,  Chung  ?"  queried  Dawson,  ob 
serving  for  the  first  time  that  the  China 
man's  queue  stood  up  as  straight  as  a  gar 
den  stake,  and  almost  scraped  the  ceiling 
as  its  owner  moved  about.  "  Funny  ?" 

"  Yeppee,  flunny,"  returned  Chung,  with 
a  shiver.  "  Me  no  likee.  Me  flightened." 

"  Oh,  come  !"  said  Dawson,  with  an  af 
fected  lightness.  "  What  are  you  afraid 
of?" 

143 


GHOSTS     I     HAVE    MET 

"  Slumting,"  said  Chung.  "  Do'  know 
what.  Go  to  bled  ;  no  sleepee  ;  pigtail  no 
stay  down  ;  heart  go  thump  allee  night." 

"  By  Jove  !"  thought  Dawson  ;  "  he's  got 
it  too  !" 

"  Evlyting  flunny  here,"  resumed  Chung. 
"  Jack  he  no  likee  too." 

Jack  was  the  mastiff. 

"  What's  the  matter  with  Jack  ?"  queried 
Dawson.  "  You  don't  mean  to  say  Jack's 
afraid  ?" 

"  Do'  know  if  he  'flaid,"  said  Chung. 
"  He  growl  most  time." 

Clearly  there  was  no  comfort  for  Dawson 
here.  To  rid  him  of  his  fears  it  was  evi 
dent  that  Chung  could  be  of  no  assistance, 
and  Chung's  feeling  that  even  Jack  was  af 
fected  by  the  uncanny  something  was  by  no 
means  reassuring.  Dawson  went  out  into 
the  yard  and  whistled  for  the  dog,  and  in  a 
moment  the  magnificent  animal  came  bound 
ing  up.  Dawson  patted  him  on  the  back, 
but  Jack,  instead  of  rejoicing  as  was  his 
wont  over  this  token  of  his  master's  affec 
tion,  gave  a  yelp  of  pain,  which  was  quite 
in  accord  with  Dawson's  own  feelings,  for 
144 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

gentle  though  the  pat  was,  his  hand  after 
it  felt  as  though  he  had  pressed  it  upon  a 
bunch  of  needles. 

"What's  the  matter,  old  fellow?"  said 
Dawson,  ruefully  rubbing  the  palm  of  his 
hand.  "  Did  I  hurt  you  ?" 

The  dog  tried  to  wag  his  tail,  but  un- 
availingly,  and  Dawson  was  again  filled 
with  consternation  to  observe  that  even  as 
Chung's  queue  stood  high,  even  as  his  own 
hair  would  not  lie  down,  so  it  was  with 
Jack's  soft  furry  skin.  Every  hair  on  it 
was  erect,  from  the  tip  of  the  poor  beast's 
nose  to  the  end  of  his  tail,  and  so  stiff 
withal  that  when  it  was  pressed  from  with 
out  it  pricked  the  dog  within. 

"  There  seems  to  be  some  starch  in  the 
air  of  Dampmere,"  said  Dawson,  thought 
fully,  as  he  turned  and  walked  slowly  into 
the  house.  "  I  wonder  what  the  deuce  it 
all  means  ?" 

And  then  he  sought  his  desk  and  tried  to 
write,  but  he  soon  found  that  he  could  not 
possibly  concentrate  his  mind  upon  his  work. 
He  was  continually  oppressed  by  the  feel 
ing  that  he  was  not  alone.  At  one  moment 
K  M5 


GHOSTS    1     HAVE     MET 

it  seemed  as  if  there  were  a  pair  of  eyes 
peering  at  him  from  the  northeast  corner 
of  the  room,  but  as  soon  as  he  turned  his 
own  anxious  gaze  in  that  direction  the  dif 
ficulty  seemed  to  lie  in  the  southwest 
corner. 

"  Bah !"  he  cried,  starting  up  and  stamp 
ing  his  foot  angrily  upon  the  floor.  "  The 
idea  !  I,  Charles  Dawson,  a  man  of  the 
world,  scared  by — by — well,  by  nothing.  I 
don't  believe  in  ghosts — and  yet — at  times 
I  do  believe  that  this  house  is  haunted. 
My  hair  seems  to  feel  the  same  way.  It 
stands  up  like  stubble  in  a  wheat-field,  and 
one  might  as  well  try  to  brush  the  one  as 
the  other.  At  this  rate  nothing  '11  get  done. 
I'll  go  to  town  and  see  Dr.  Bronson.  There's 
something  the  matter  with  me." 

So  off  Dawson  went  to  town. 

"  I  suppose  Bronson  will  think  I'm  a  fool, 
but  I  can  prove  all  I  say  by  my  hair,"  he 
said,  as  he  rang  the  doctor's  bell.  He  was 
instantly  admitted,  and  shortly  after  de 
scribing  his  symptoms  he  called  the  doc 
tor's  attention  to  his  hair. 

If  he  had  pinned  his  faith  to  this,  he 
146 


WHEN    HE    ROSE    UP    IN   THE    MORNING    HE 
WOULD    FIND    EVERY    SINGLE    HAIR    ON 
HIS    HEAD    STANDING   ERECT" 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

showed  that  his  faith  was  misplaced,  for 
when  the  doctor  came  to  examine  it,  Daw- 
son's  hair  was  lying  clown  as  softly  as  it 
ever  had.  The  doctor  looked  at  Dawson 
for  a  moment,  and  then,  with  a  dry  cough, 
he  said  : 

"  Dawson,  I  can  conclude  one  of  two 
things  from  what  you  tell  me.  Either 
Dampmere  is  haunted,  which  you  and  I  as 
sane  men  can't  believe  in  these  clays,  or 
else  you  are  playing  a  practical  joke  on 
me.  Now  I  don't  mind  a  practical  joke  at 
the  club,  my  dear  fellow,  but  here,  in  my 
office  hours,  I  can't  afford  the  time  to  like 
anything  of  the  sort.  I  speak  frankly  with 
you,  old  fellow.  I  have  to.  I  hate  to  do 
it,  but,  after  all,  you've  brought  it  on  your 
self." 

"  Doctor,"  Dawson  rejoined,  "  I  believe 
I'm  a  sick  man,  else  this  thing  wouldn't 
have  happened.  I  solemnly  assure  you 
that  I've  come  to  you  because  I  wanted 
a  prescription,  and  because  I  believe  my 
self  badly  off." 

"  You  carry  it  off  well,  Dawson,"  said 
the  doctor,  severely,  "  but  I'll  prescribe. 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE     MET 

Go  back  to  Dampmere  right  away,  and 
when  you've  seen  the  ghost,  telegraph  me 
and  I'll  come  down." 

With  this  Bronson  bowed  Dawson  out, 
and  the  latter,  poor  fellow,  soon  found  him 
self  on  the  street  utterly  disconsolate.  He 
could  not  blame  Bronson.  He  could  un 
derstand  how  Bronson  could  come  to  be 
lieve  that,  with  his  hair  as  the  only  witness 
to  his  woes,  and  a  witness  that  failed  him 
at  the  crucial  moment,  Bronson  should  re 
gard  his  visit  as  the  outcome  of  some  club 
wager,  in  many  of  which  he  had  been  in 
volved  previously. 

"  I  guess  his  advice  is  good,"  said  he, 
as  he  walked  along.  "  I'll  go  back  right 
away — but  meanwhile  I'll  get  Billie  Perkins 
to  come  out  and  spend  the  night  with  me, 
and  we'll  try  it  on  him.  I'll  ask  him  out 
for  a  few  days." 

Suffice  it  to  say  that  Perkins  accepted, 
and  that  night  found  the  two  eating  supper 
together  outwardly  serene.  Perkins  was 
quite  interested  when  Chung  brought  in 
the  supper. 

"  Wears  his  queue  Pompadour,  I  see,"  he 
148 


» 


WEARS    HIS    QUEUE    POMPADOUR,   I    SEE '  " 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

said,  as  he  glanced  at  Chung's  extraordi 
nary  head-dress. 

"  Yes,"  said  Dawson,  shortly. 

"You  wear  your  hair  that  way  yourself," 
he  added,  for  he  was  pleased  as  well  as  as 
tonished  to  note  that  Perkins's  hair  was 
manifesting  an  upward  tendency. 

"Nonsense,"  said  Perkins.  "It's  flat  as 
a  comic  paper." 

"  Look  at  yourself  in  the  glass,"  said 
Dawson. 

Perkins  obeyed.  There  was  no  doubt 
about  it.  His  hair  was  rising!  He  started 
back  uneasily. 

"Dawson,"  he  cried,  "what  is  it?  I've 
felt  queer  ever  since  I  entered  your  front 
door,  and  I  assure  you  I've  been  wonder 
ing  why  you  wore  your  mustache  like  a  pi 
rate  all  the  evening." 

"  I  can't  account  for  it.  I've  got  the 
creeps  myself,"  said  Dawson,  and  then 
he  told  Perkins  all  that  I  have  told 
you. 

"  Let's — let's  go  back  to  New  York,"  said 
Perkins. 

"  Can't,"  replied  Dawson.     "  No  train." 
149 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

"  Then,"  said  Perkins,  with  a  shiver, 
"  let's  go  to  bed." 

The  two  men  retired,  Dawson  to  the  room 
directly  over  the  parlor,  Perkins  to  the  apart 
ment  back  of  it.  For  company  they  left  the 
gas  burning,  and  in  a  short  time  were  fast 
asleep.  An  hour  later  Dawson  awakened 
with  a  start.  Two  things  oppressed  him 
to  the  very  core  of  his  being.  First,  the 
gas  was  out;  and  second,  Perkins  had  un 
mistakably  groaned. 

He  leaped  from  his  bed  and  hastened 
into  the  next  room. 

"  Perkins,"  he  cried,  "  are  you  ill  ?" 

"  Is  that  you,  Dawson  ?"  came  a  voice 
from  the  darkness. 

"  Yes.     Did — did  you  put  out  the  gas?" 

11  No." 

"Are  you  ill?" 

"  No  ;  but  I'm  deuced  uncomfortable 
What's  this  mattress  stuffed  with — needles  ?" 

"  Needles  ?  No.  It's  a  hair  mattress. 
Isn't  it  all  right?" 

"  Not  by  a  great  deal.     I  feel  as  if  I  had 
been   sleeping  on   a  porcupine.     Light  up 
the  gas  and  let's  see  what  the  trouble  is." 
150 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

Dawson  did  as  he  was  told,  wondering 
meanwhile  why  the  gas  had  gone  out.  No 
one  had  turned  it  out,  and  yet  the  key  was 
unmistakably  turned  ;  and,  what  was  worse, 
on  ripping  open  Perkins's  mattress,  a  most 
disquieting  state  of  affairs  was  disclosed. 

Every  single  hair  in  it  was  standing  on  end 7 

A  half-hour  later  four  figures  were  to  be 
seen  wending  their  way  northward  through 
the  darkness— two  men,  a  huge  mastiff,  and 
a  Chinaman.  The  group  was  made  up  of 
Dawson,  his  guest,  his  servant,  and  his  dog. 
Dampmere  was  impossible ;  there  was  no 
train  until  morning,  but  not  one  of  them 
was  willing  to  remain  a  moment  longer  at 
Dampmere,  and  so  they  had  to  walk. 

"  What  do  you  suppose  it  was  ?"  asked 
Perkins,  as  they  left  the  third  mile  behind 
them. 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Dawson  ;  "  but  it 
must  be  something  terrible.  I  don't  mind 
a  ghost  that  will  make  the  hair  of  living 
beings  stand  on  end,  but  a  nameless  in 
visible  something  that  affects  a  mattress 
that  way  has  a  terrible  potency  that  I  have 
151 


GHOSTS     I     HAVE     MET 

no  desire  to  combat.  It's  a  mystery,  and, 
as  a  rule,  I  like  mysteries,  but  the  mystery 
of  Dampmere  I'd  rather  let  alone." 

"Don't  say  a  word  about  the  —  ah  — 
the  mattress,  Charlie,"  said  Perkins,  after 
awhile.  "  The  fellows  '11  never  believe  it." 

"  No.  I  was  thinking  that  very  same 
thing,"  said  Dawson. 

And  they  were  both  true  to  Dawson's  re 
solve,  which  is  possibly  why  the  mystery  of 
Dampmere  has  never  been  solved. 

If  any  of  my  readers  can  furnish  a  solu 
tion,  I  wish  they  would  do  so,  for  I  am  very 
much  interested  in  the  case,  and  I  truly  hate 
to  leave  a  story  of  this  kind  in  so  unsatis 
factory  a  condition. 

A  ghost  story  without  any  solution  strikes 
me  as  being  about  as  useful  as  a  house  with 
out  a  roof. 


CARLETON    BARKER,  FIRST   AND 
SECOND 


MY  first  meeting  with  Carleton  Barker  was 
a  singular  one.  A  friend  and  I,  in  August, 
18 — ,  were  doing  the  English  Lake  District 
on  foot,  when,  on  nearing  the  base  of  the 
famous  Mount  Skiddaw,  we  observed  on 
the  road,  some  distance  ahead  of  us,  limp 
ing  along  and  apparently  in  great  pain,  the 
man  whose  subsequent  career  so  sorely  puz 
zled  us.  Noting  his  very  evident  distress, 
Parton  and  I  quickened  our  pace  and  soon 
caught  up  with  the  stranger,  who,  as  we 
reached  his  side,  fell  forward  upon  his  face 
in  a  fainting  condition — as  well  he  might, 
for  not  only  must  he  have  suffered  great 
agony  from  a  sprained  ankle,  but  inspec 
tion  of  his  person  disclosed  a  most  extraor 
dinary  gash  in  his  right  arm,  made  appar- 
i53 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE     MET 

ently  with  a  sharp  knife,  and  which  was 
bleeding  most  profusely.  To  stanch  the 
flow  of  blood  was  our  first  care,  and  Parton, 
having  recently  been  graduated  in  medicine, 
made  short  work  of  relieving  the  sufferer's 
pain  from  his  ankle,  bandaging  it  about  and 
applying  such  soothing  properties  as  he  had 
in  his  knapsack— properties,  by  the  way, 
with  which,  knowing  the  small  perils  to 
which  pedestrians  everywhere  are  liable,  he 
was  always  provided. 

Our  patient  soon  recovered  his  senses 
and  evinced  no  little  gratitude  for  the  ser 
vice  we  had  rendered  him,  insisting  upon  our 
accepting  at  his  hands,  merely,  he  said,  as 
a  souvenir  of  our  good-Samaritanship,  and 
as  a  token  of  his  appreciation  of  the  same, 
a  small  pocket-flask  and  an  odd  diamond- 
shaped  stone  pierced  in  the  centre,  which 
had  hung  from  the  end  of  his  watch-chain, 
held  in  place  by  a  minute  gold  ring.  The 
flask  became  the  property  of  Parton,  and 
to  me  fell  the  stone,  the  exact  hue  of  which 
I  was  never  able  to  determine,  since  it  was 
chameleonic  in  its  properties.  When  it  was 
placed  in  my  hands  by  our  "grateful  pa- 
154 


AND    SOME     OTHERS 

tient"  it  was  blood -red;  when  I  looked 
upon  it  on  the  following  morning  it  was  of 
a  livid,  indescribable  hue,  yet  lustrous  as 
an  opal.  To-day  it  is  colorless  and  dull, 
as  though  some  animating  quality  that  it 
had  once  possessed  had  forever  passed 
from  it. 

"  You  seem  to  have  met  with  an  acci 
dent,"  said  Parton,  when  the  injured  man 
had  recovered  sufficiently  to  speak. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  wincing  with  pain,  "  I 
have.  I  set  out  for  Saddleback  this  morn 
ing — I  wished  to  visit  the  Scales  Tarn  and 
get  a  glimpse  of  those  noonday  stars  that 
are  said  to  make  its  waters  lustrous, 
and—" 

"  And  to  catch  the  immortal  fish  ?"  I 
queried. 

fc<  No,"  he  replied,  with  a  laugh.  "  I 
should  have  been  satisfied  to  see  the  stars — 
and  I  did  see  the  stars,  but  not  the  ones 
I  set  out  to  see.  I  have  always  been  more 
or  less  careless  of  my  safety,  walking  with 
my  head  in  the  clouds  and  letting  my  feet 
look  out  for  themselves.  The  result  wras 
that  I  slipped  on  a  moss-covered  stone  and 
155 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE     MET 

fell  over  a  very  picturesque  bit  of  scenery 
on  to  some  more  stones  that,  unfortunately, 
were  not  moss-covered." 

"  But  the  cut  in  your  arm  ?"  said  Parton, 
suspiciously.  "That  looks  as  if  somebody 
else  had  given  it  to  you." 

The  stranger's  face  flushed  as  red  as  could 
be  considering  the  amount  of  blood  he  had 
lost,  and  a  look  of  absolute  devilishness  that 
made  my  flesh  creep  came  into  his  eyes. 
For  a  moment  he  did  not  speak,  and  then, 
covering  the  delay  in  his  answer  with  a  groan 
of  anguish,  he  said  : 

"  Oh,  that !  Yes— I— I  did  manage  to 
cut  myself  rather  badly  and — '1 

"  I  don't  see  how  you  could,  though," 
insisted  Parton.  "  You  couldn't  reach  that 
part  of  yourself  with  a  knife,  if  you  tried." 

"  That's  just  the  reason  why  you  should 
see  for  yourself  that  it  was  caused  by  my 
falling  on  my  knife.  I  had  it  grasped  in 
my  right  hand,  intending  to  cut  myself  a 
stick,  when  I  slipped.  As  I  slipped  it  flew 
from  my  hand  and  I  landed  on  it,  fortu 
nately  on  the  edge  and  not  on  the  point," 
he  explained,  his  manner  far  from  convinc- 
156 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

ing,  though  the  explanation  seemed  so  sim 
ple  that  to  doubt  it  were  useless. 

"  Did  you  recover  the  knife  ?"  asked  Par- 
ton.  "  It  must  have  been  a  mighty  sharp 
one,  and  rather  larger  than  most  people 
carry  about  with  them  on  excursions  like 
yours." 

"  I  am  not  on  the  witness-stand,  sir,"  re 
turned  the  other,  somewhat  petulantly,  "and 
so  I  fail  to  see  why  you  should  question  me 
so  closely  in  regard  to  so  simple  a  matter- 
as  though  you  suspected  me  of  some  wrong 
doing." 

"  My  friend  is  a  doctor,"  I  explained  ; 
for  while  I  was  quite  as  much  interested  in 
the  incident,  its  whys  and  wherefores,  as 
was  Parton,  I  had  myself  noticed  that  he 
was  suspicious  of  his  chance  patient,  and 
seemingly  not  so  sympathetic  as  he  would 
otherwise  have  been.  "  He  regards  you  as 
a  case." 

"  Not  at  all,"  returned  Parton.  "  I  am 
simply  interested  to  know  how  you  hurt 
yourself — that  is  all.  I  mean  no  offence, 
I  am  sure,  and  if  anything  I  have  said  has 
hurt  your  feelings  I  apologize." 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE     MET 

"  Don't  mention  it,  doctor,"  replied  the 
other,  with  an  uneasy  smile,  holding  his 
left  hand  out  towards  Parton  as  he  spoke. 
"  I  am  in  great  pain,  as  you  know,  and  per 
haps  I  seem  irritable.  I'm  not  an  amiable 
man  at  best ;  as  for  the  knife,  in  my  agony 
I  never  thought  to  look  for  it  again,  though 
I  suppose  if  I  had  looked  I  should  not  have 
found  it,  since  it  doubtless  fell  into  the  un 
derbrush  out  of  sight.  Let  it  rest  there. 
It  has  not  done  me  a  friendly  service  to-day 
and  I  shall  waste  no  tears  over  it." 

With  which  effort  at  pleasantry  he  rose 
with  some  difficulty  to  his  feet,  and  with 
the  assistance  of  Parton  and  myself  walked 
on  and  into  Keswick,  where  we  stopped  for 
the  night.  .The  stranger  registered  di 
rectly  ahead  of  Parton  and  myself,  writing 
the  words,  "  Carleton  Barker,  Calcutta," 
in  the  book,  and  immediately  retired  to  his 
room,  nor  did  we  see  him  again  that  night. 
After  supper  we  looked  for  him,  but  as  he 
was  nowhere  to  be  seen,  we  concluded  that 
he  had  gone  to  bed  to  seek  the  recupera 
tion  of  rest.  Parton  and  I  lit  our  cigars 
and,  though  somewhat  fatigued  by  our  ex- 
158 


AND    SOME     OTHERS 

ertions,  strolled  quietly  about  the  more  or 
less  somnolent  burg  in  which  we  were,  dis 
cussing  the  events  of  the  day,  and  chiefly 
our  new  acquaintance. 

"  I  don't  half  like  that  fellow,"  said  Par- 
ton;  with  a  dubious  shake  of  the  head.  "  If 
a  dead  body  should  turn  up  near  or  on  Skid- 
daw  to-morrow  morning,  I  wouldn't  like  to 
wager  that  Mr.  Carleton  Barker  hadn't  put 
it  there.  He  acted  to  me  like  a  man  who 
had  something  to  conceal,  and  if  I  could 
have  done  it  without  seeming  ungracious, 
I'd  have  flung  his  old  flask  as  far  into  the 
fields  as  I  could.  I've  half  a  mind  to  show 
my  contempt  for  it  now  by  filling  it  with 
some  of  that  beastly  claret  they  have  at  the 
table  d'hote  here,  and  chucking  the  whole 
thing  into  the  lake.  It  was  an  insult  to 
offer  those  things  to  us." 

"  I  think  you  are  unjust,  Parton,"  I  said. 
"  He  certainly  did  look  as  if  he  had  been 
in  a  maul  with  somebody.  There  was  a 
nasty  scratch  on  his  face,  and  that  cut  on 
the  arm  was  suspicious ;  but  I  can't  see  but 
that  his  explanation  was  clear  enough.  Your 
manner  was  too  irritating.  I  think  if  I  had 
159 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE     MET 

met  with  an  accident  and  was  assisted  by 
an  utter  stranger  who,  after  placing  me  un 
der  obligations  to  him,  acted  towards  me  as 
though  I  were  an  unconvicted  criminal,  I'd 
be  as  mad  as  he  was ;  and  as  for  the  insult 
of  his  offering,  in  my  eyes  that  was  the  only 
way  he  could  soothe  his  injured  feelings. 
He  was  angry  at  your  suspicions,  and  to  be 
entirely  your  debtor  for  services  didn't 
please  him.  His  gift  to  me  was  made  sim 
ply  because  he  did  not  wish  to  pay  you  in 
substance  and  me  in  thanks." 

"  I  don't  go  so  far  as  to  call  him  an  un 
convicted  criminal,  but  I'll  swear  his  record 
isn't  clear  as  daylight,  and  I'm  morally  con 
vinced  that  if  men's  deeds  were  written  on 
their  foreheads  Carleton  Barker,  esquire, 
would  wear  his  hat  down  over  his  eyes.  I 
don't  like  him.  I  instinctively  dislike  him. 
Did  you  see  the  look  in  his  eyes  when  I 
mentioned  the  knife  ?" 

"  I  did,"  I  replied.  "  And  it  made  me 
shudder." 

"  It  turned  every  drop  of  blood  in  my 
veins  cold,"  said  Parton.  "  It  made  me 
feel  that  if  he  had  had  that  knife  within 
1 60 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

reach  he  would  have  trampled  it  to  powder, 
even  if  every  stamp  of  his  foot  cut  his  flesh 
through  to  the  bone.  Malignant  is  the 
word  to  describe  that  glance,  and  I'd  rath 
er  encounter  a  rattle -snake  than  see  it 
again. " 

Parton  spoke  with  such  evident  earnest 
ness  that  I  took  refuge  in  silence.  I  could 
see  just  where  a  man  of  Parton's  tempera 
ment — which  was  cold  and  eminently  ju 
dicial  even  when  his  affections  were  con 
cerned—could  find  that  in  Barker  at  which 
to  cavil,  but,  for  all  that,  I  could  not  sympa 
thize  with  the  extreme  view  he  took  of  his 
character.  I  have  known  many  a  man  upon 
whose  face  nature  has  set  the  stamp  of  the 
villain  much  more  deeply  than  it  was  im 
pressed  upon  Barker's  countenance,  who 
has  lived  a  life  most  irreproachable,  whose 
every  act  has  been  one  of  unselfishness  and 
for  the  good  of  mankind ;  and  I  have  also 
seen  outward  appearing  saints  whose  every 
instinct  was  base;  and  it  seemed  to  me  that 
the  physiognomy  of  the  unfortunate  victim 
of  the  moss -covered  rock  and  vindictive 
knife  was  just  enough  of  a  medium  between 
L  161 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE    MET 

that  of  the  irredeemable  sinner  and  the  ster 
ling  saint  to  indicate  that  its  owner  was  the 
average  man  in  the  matter  of  vices  and  virt 
ues.  In  fact,  the  malignancy  of  his  ex 
pression  when  the  knife  was  mentioned  was 
to  me  the  sole  point  against  him,  and  had 
I  been  in  his  position  I  do  not  think  I 
should  have  acted  very  differently,  though 
I  must  add  that  if  I  thought  myself  capable 
of  freezing  any  person's  blood  with  an  ex 
pression  of  my  eyes  I  should  be  strongly 
tempted  to  wear  blue  glasses  when  in  com 
pany  or  before  a  mirror. 

"  I  think  I'll  send  my  card  up  to  him, 
Jack,"  I  said  to  Parton,  when  we  had  re 
turned  to  the  hotel,  "just  to  ask  how  he 
is.  Wouldn't  you  ?" 

"  No  !"  snapped  Parton.  "  But  then  I'm 
not  you.  You  can  do  as  you  please.  Don't 
let  me  influence  you  against  him— if  he's  to 
your  taste." 

"  He  isn't  at  all  to  my  taste,"  I  retorted. 
"  I  don't  care  for  him  particularly,  but  it 
seems  to  me  courtesy  requires  that  we  show 
a  little  interest  in  his  welfare." 

"Be  courteous,  then,  and  show  your  inter- 
162 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

est,"  said   Parton.     "  I  don't  care  as  long 
as  I  am  not  dragged  into  it." 

I  sent  my  card  up  by  the  boy,  who,  re 
turning  in  a  moment,  said  that  the  door  was 
locked,  adding  that  when  he  had  knocked 
upon  it  there  came  no  answer,  from  which 
he  presumed  that  Mr.  Barker  had  gone  to 
sleep. 

"  He  seemed  all  right  when  you  took  his 
supper  to  his  room  ?"  I  queried. 

"  He  said  he  wouldn't  have  any  sup 
per.  Just  wanted  to  be  left  alone,"  said 
the  boy. 

"  Sulking  over  the  knife  still,  I  imagine," 
sneered  Parton  ;  and  then  he  and  I  retired 
to  our  room  and  prepared  for  bed. 

I  do  not  suppose  I  had  slept  for  more 
than  an  hour  when  I  was  awakened  by  Par- 
ton,  who  was  pacing  the  floor  like  a  caged 
tiger,  his  eyes  all  ablaze,  and  laboring  un 
der  an  intense  nervous  excitement. 

"What's  the  matter,  Jack?1'  I  asked,  sit 
ting  up  in  bed. 

"  That  d — ned  Barker  has  upset  my 
nerves,"  he  replied.  "  I  can't  get  him  out 
of  my  mind." 

163 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE     MET 

"Oh,  pshaw!"  I  replied.  "Don't  be 
silly.  Forget  him." 

"Silly?"  he  retorted,  angrily.  "Silly? 
Forget  him  ?  Hang  it,  I  would  forget  him 
if  he'd  let  me — but  he  won't." 

"  What  has  he  got  to  do  with  it  ?" 

"  More  than  is  decent,"  ejaculated  Par- 
ton.  "  More  than  is  decent.  He  has  just 
been  peering  in  through  that  window  there, 
and  he  means  no  good." 

"  Why,  you're  mad,"  I  remonstrated. 
"  He  couldn't  peer  in  at  the  window — we 
are  on  the  fourth  floor,  and  there  is  no  pos 
sible  way  in  which  he  could  reach  the  win 
dow,  much  less  peer  in  at  it." 

"  Nevertheless,"  insisted  Parton,  "  Carle- 
ton  Barker  for  ten  minutes  previous  to  your 
waking  was  peering  in  at  me  through  that 
window  there,  and  in  his  glance  was  that 
same  malignant,  hateful  quality  that  so  set 
me  against  him  to-day — and  another  thing, 
Bob,"  added  Parton,  stopping  his  nervous 
walk  for  a  moment  and  shaking  his  finger 
impressively  at  me — "  another  thing  which 
I  did  not  tell  you  before  because  I  thought 
it  would  fill  you  with  that  same  awful  dread 
164 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

that  has  come  to  me  since  meeting  Barker — 
the  blood  from  that  man's  arm,  the  blood 
that  stained  his  shirt-sleeve  crimson,  that 
besmeared  his  clothes,  spurted  out  upon 
my  cuff  and  coat-sleeve  when  I  strove  to 
stanch  its  flow !" 

"Yes,  I  remember  that,"  said  I. 

"And  now  look  at  my  cuff  and  sleeve!" 
whispered  Parton,  his  face  grown  white. 

I  looked. 

There  was  no  stain  of  any  sort  whatsoever 
upon  either  ! 

Certainly  there  must  have  been  some 
thing  wrong  about  Carleton  Barker. 


II 

THE  mystery  of  Carleton  Barker  was  by 
no  means  lessened  when  next  morning  it 
was  found  that  his  room  not  only  was 
empty,  but  that,  as  far  as  one  could  judge 
from  the  aspect  of  things  therein,  it  had 
not  been  occupied  at  all.  Furthermore,  our 
chance  acquaintance  had  vanished,  leaving 
no  more  trace  of  his  whereabouts  than  if  he 
had  never  existed. 

165 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

"  Good  riddance,"  said  Parton.  "  I  am 
afraid  he  and  I  would  have  come  to  blows 
sooner  or  later,  because  the  mere  thought 
of  him  was  beginning  to  inspire  me  with  a 
desire  to  thrash  him.  I'm  sure  he  deserves 
a  trouncing,  whoever  he  is." 

I,  too,  was  glad  the  fellow  had  passed  out 
of  our  ken,  but  not  for  the  reason  advanced 
by  Parton.  Since  the  discovery  of  the  stain 
less  cuff,  where  marks  of  blood  ought  by 
nature  to  have  been,  I  goose-fleshed  at  the 
mention  of  his  name.  There  was  something 
so  inexpressibly  uncanny  about  a  creature 
having  a  fluid  of  that  sort  in  his  veins.  In 
fact,  so  unpleasantly  was  I  impressed  by 
that  episode  that  I  was  unwilling  even  to 
join  in  a  search  for  the  mysteriously  miss 
ing  Barker,  and  by  common  consent  Parton 
and  I  dropped  him  entirely  as  a  subject  for 
conversation. 

We  spent  the  balance  of  our  week  at  Kes- 
wick,  using  it  as  our  head-quarters  for  little 
trips  about  the  surrounding  country,  which 
is  most  charmingly  adapted  to  the  wants  of 
those  inclined  to  pedestrianism,  and  on  Sun 
day  evening  began  preparations  for  our  de- 
166 


AND     SOME     OTHERS 

parture,  discarding  our  knickerbockers  and 
resuming  the  habiliments  of  urban  life,  in 
tending  on  Monday  morning  to  run  up  to 
Edinburgh,  there  to  while  away  a  few  days 
before  starting  for  a  short  trip  through  the 
Trossachs. 

While  engaged  in  packing  our  portman 
teaux  there  came  a  sharp  knock  at  the  door, 
and  upon  opening  it  I  found  upon  the 
hall  floor  an  envelope  addressed  to  myself. 
There  was  no  one  anywhere  in  the  hall, 
and,  so  quickly  had  I  opened  the  door  after 
the  knock,  that  fact  mystified  me.  It  would 
hardly  have  been  possible  for  any  person, 
however  nimble  of  foot,  to  have  passed  out 
of  sight  in  the  period  which  had  elapsed 
between  the  summons  and  my  response. 

"What  is  it?"  asked  Parton,  observing 
that  I  was  slightly  agitated. 

"  Nothing,"  I  said,  desirous  of  concealing 
from  him  the  matter  that  bothered  me,  lest 
I  should  be  laughed  at  for  my  pains.  "  Noth 
ing,  except  a  letter  for  me." 

"  Not    by  post,  is    it  ?"   he    queried  ;   to 
which  he  added,  "  Can't  be.     There  is  no 
mail  here  to-day.     Some  friend  ?" 
167 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE     MET 

"  I  don't  know,"  I  said,  trying,  in  a 
somewhat  feminine  fashion,  to  solve  the 
authorship  of  the  letter  before  opening  it 
by  staring  at  the  superscription.  "  I  don't 
recognize  the  handwriting  at  all." 

I  then  opened  the  letter,  and  glancing 
hastily  at  the  signature  was  filled  with  un 
easiness  to  see  who  my  correspondent  was. 

"  It's  from  that  fellow  Barker,"  I  said. 

"Barker!"  cried  Parton.  "What  on 
earth  has  Barker  been  writing  to  you 
about  ?" 

"  He  is  in  trouble,"  I  replied,  as  I  read 
the  letter. 

"  Financial,  I  presume,  and  wants  a  lift  ?" 
suggested  Parton. 

"Worse  than  that,"  said  I,  "he  is  in 
prison  in  London." 

"Wha-a-at?"  ejaculated  Parton.  "In 
prison  in  London  ?  What  for  ?" 

"  On  suspicion  of  having  murdered  an 
innkeeper  in  the  South  of  England  on 
Tuesday,  August  i6th." 

"  Well,  I'm  sorry  to  say  that  I  believe  he 
was  guilty,"  returned  Parton,  without  re 
flecting  that  the  i6th  day  of  August  was  the 
1 68 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

day  upon  which  he  and  I  had  first  encoun 
tered  Barker. 

"  That's  your  prejudice,  Jack,"  said  I. 
"  If  you'll  think  a  minute  you'll  know  he 
was  innocent.  He  was  here  on  August 
1 6th — last  Tuesday.  It  was  then  that  you 
and  I  saw  him  for  the  first  time  limping 
along  the  road  and  bleeding  from  a  wound 
in  the  shoulder." 

"Was  Tuesday  the  i6th?"  said  Parton, 
counting  the  days  backward  on  his  fingers. 
"  That's  a  fact.  It  was — but  it's  none  of 
my  affair  anyhow.  It  is  too  blessed  queer 
for  me  to  mix  myself  up  in  it,  and  I  say  let 
him  languish  in  jail.  He  deserved  it  for 
something,  I  am  sure — " 

"  Well,  I'm  not  so  confoundedly  heart 
less,"  I  returned,  pounding  the  table  with 
my  fist,  indignant  that  Parton  should  allow 
his  prejudices  to  run  away  with  his  sense  of 
justice.  "  I'm  going  to  London  to  do  as 
he  asks." 

"  What  does  he  want  you  to  do  ?  Prove 
an  alibi  ?" 

"  Precisely ;  and  I'm  going  and  you're 
going,  and  I  shall  see  if  the  landlord  here 
169 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

won't  let  me  take  one  of  his  boys  along  to 
support  our  testimony — at  my  own  expense 
if  need  be." 

"  You're  right,  old  chap,"  returned  Par- 
ton,  after  a  moment  of  internal  struggle. 
"  I  suppose  we  really  ought  to  help  the 
fellow  out  of  his  scrape  ;  but  I'm  decidedly 
averse  to  getting  mixed  up  in  an  affair  of 
any  kind  with  a  man  like  Carleton  Barker, 
much  less  in  an  affair  with  murder  in  it  Is 
he  specific  about  the  murder  ?" 

"No.  He  refers  me  to  the  London  pa 
pers  of  the  i yth  and  i8th  for  details.  He 
hadn't  time  to  write  more,  because  he  comes 
up  for  examination  on  Tuesday  morning, 
and  as  our  presence  is  essential  to  his  case 
he  was  necessarily  hurried." 

"  It's  deucedly  hard  luck  for  us,"  said 
Parton,  ruefully.  "  It  means  no  Scotland 
this  trip." 

"How  about  Barker's  luck?"  I  asked. 
"  He  isn't  fighting  for  a  Scottish  trip — he's 
fighting  for  his  life." 

And  so  it  happened  that  on  Monday 
morning,  instead  of  starting  for  Edinburgh, 
we  boarded  the  train  for  London  at  Car- 
170 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

lisle.  We  tried  to  get  copies  of  the  news 
papers  containing  accounts  of  the  crime  that 
had  been  committed,  but  our  efforts  were 
unavailing,  and  it  was  not  until  we  arrived 
in  London  and  were  visited  by  Barker's  at 
torneys  that  we  obtained  any  detailed  in 
formation  whatsoever  of  the  murder;  and 
when  we  did  get  it  we  were  more  than  ever 
regretful  to  be  mixed  up  in  it,  for  it  was  an 
unusually  brutal  murder.  Strange  to  say,  the 
evidence  against  Barker  was  extraordinarily 
convincing,  considering  that  at  the  time  of 
the  commission  of  the  crime  he  was  hun 
dreds  of  miles  from  the  scene.  There  was 
testimony  from  railway  guards,  neighbors  of 
the  murdered  innkeeper,  and  others,  that 
it  was  Barker  and  no  one  else  who  com 
mitted  the  crime.  His  identification  was 
complete,  and  the  wound  in  his  shoulder 
was  shown  almost  beyond  the  possibility  of 
doubt  to  have  been  inflicted  by  the  mur 
dered  man  in  self-defence. 

"  Our  only  hope,"  said  the  attorney,  grave 
ly,  "  is  in  proving  an  alibi.     I  do  not  know 
what  to  believe  myself,  the  chain   of  evi 
dence  against  my  client  is  so  complete  ;  and 
171 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE    MET 

yet  he  asserts  his  innocence,  and  has  stated 
to  me  that  you  two  gentlemen  could  assist 
in  proving  it.  If  you  actually  encountered 
Carleton  Barker  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Keswick  on  the  i6th  of  this  month,  the 
whole  case  against  him  falls  to  the  ground. 
If  not,  I  fear  his  outlook  has  the  gallows 
at  the  small  end  of  the  perspective." 

"  We  certainly  did  meet  a  Carleton  Bar 
ker  at  Keswick  on  Tuesday,  August  i6th," 
returned  Parton  •  "  and  he  was  wounded  in 
the  shoulder,  and  his  appearance  was  what 
might  have  been  expected  of  one  who  had 
been  through  just  such  a  frightful  murder 
as  we  understand  this  to  have  been ;  but 
this  was  explained  to  us  as  due  to  a  fall 
over  rocks  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Scales  Tarn 
— which  was  plausible  enough  to  satisfy  my 
friend  here." 

"  And  not  yourself  ?"  queried  the  attorney. 

"  Well,  I  don't  see  what  that  has  to  do 
with  it,"  returned  Parton.  "  As  to  the  lo 
cality  there  is  no  question.  He  was  there. 
We  saw  him,  and  others  saw  him,  and  we 
have  taken  the  trouble  to  come  down  here 
to  state  the  fact,  and  have  brought  with  us 
172 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

the  call-boy  from  the  hotel,  who  can  support 
our  testimony  if  it  is  not  regarded  as  suf 
ficient.  I  advise  you,  however,  as  attorney 
for  Barker,  not  to  inquire  too  deeply  into 
that  matter,  because  I  am  convinced  that  if 
he  isn't  guilty  of  this  crime — as  of  course 
he  is  not— he  hasn't  the  cleanest  record  in 
the  world.  He  has  bad  written  on  every 
line  of  his  face,  and  there  were  one  or  two 
things  connected  with  our  meeting  with  him 
that  mightn't  be  to  his  taste  to  have  men 
tioned  in  court." 

"  I  don't  need  advice,  thank  you,"  said 
the  attorney,  dryly.  "  I  wish  simply  to  es 
tablish  the  fact  of  his  presence  at  Keswick 
at  the  hour  of  5  P.M.  on  Tuesday,  August 
1 6th.  That  was  the  hour  at  which  the  mur 
der  is  supposed — in  fact,  is  proved — to  have 
been  committed.  At  5.30,  according  to 
witnesses,  my  client  was  seen  in  the  neigh 
borhood,  faint  with  loss  of  blood  from  a 
knife-wound  in  the  shoulder.  Barker  has 
the  knife-wound,  but  he  might  have  a  dozen 
of  them  and  be  acquitted  if  he  wasn't  in 
Frewenton  on  the  day  in  question." 

"You  may  rely  upon  us  to  prove  that," 
173 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE    MET 

said  I.  "We  will  swear  to  it.  We  can 
produce  tangible  objects  presented  to  us 
on  that  afternoon  by  Barker—" 

"  I  can't  produce  mine,"  said  Parton. 
"  I  threw  it  into  the  lake." 

"  Well,  I  can  produce  the  stone  he  gave 
me,"  said  I,  "and  I'll  do  it  if  you  wish." 

"That  will  be  sufficient,  I  think,"  re 
turned  the  attorney.  "  Barker  spoke  es 
pecially  about  that  stone,  for  it  was  a  half 
of  an  odd  souvenir  of  the  East,  where  he 
was  born,  and  he  fortunately  has  the  other 
half.  The  two  will  fit  together  at  the  point 
where  the  break  was  made,  and  our  case 
will  be  complete." 

The  attorney  then  left  us.  The  following 
day  we  appeared  at  the  preliminary  exami 
nation,  which  proved  to  be  the  whole  ex 
amination  as  well,  since,  despite  the  dam 
ning  circumstantial  evidence  against  Barker, 
evidence  which  shook  my  belief  almost  in 
the  veracity  of  my  own  eyes,  our  plain  state 
ments,  substantiated  by  the  evidence  of  the 
call-boy  and  the  two  halves  of  the  oriental 
pebble,  one  in  my  possession  and  the  other 
in  Barker's,  brought  about  the  discharge 
i74 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

of  the  prisoner  from  custody ;  and  the  "  Fre- 
wenton  Atrocity"  became  one  of  many 
horrible  murders,  the  mystery  of  which  time 
alone,  if  anything,  could  unravel. 

After  Barker  was  released  he  came  to  me 
and  thanked  me  most  effusively  for  the  ser 
vice  rendered  him,  and  in  many  ways  made 
himself  agreeable  during  the  balance  of  our 
stay  in  London.  Parton,  however,  would 
have  nothing  to  do  with  him,  and  to  me 
most  of  his  attentions  were  paid.  He  al 
ways  had  a  singularly  uneasy  way  about 
him,  as  though  he  were  afraid  of  some  im 
pending  trouble,  and  finally  after  a  day 
spent  with  him  slumming  about  London  — 
and  a  more  perfect  skimmer  no  one  ever 
saw,  for  he  was  apparently  familiar  with 
every  one  of  the  worst  and  lowest  resorts 
in  all  of  London  as  well  as  on  intimate 
terms  with  leaders  in  the  criminal  world — 
I  put  a  few  questions  to  him  impertinently 
pertinent  to  himself.  He  was  surprisingly 
frank  in  his  answers.  I  was  quite  prepared 
for  a  more  or  less  indignant  refusal  when 
I  asked  him  to  account  for  his  intimacy 
with  these  dregs  of  civilization. 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE    MET 

"  It's  a  long  story,"  he  said,  "but  I'll  tell 
it  to  you.  Let  us  run  in  here  and  have  a 
chop,  and  I'll  give  you  some  account  of 
myself  over  a  mug  of  ale." 

We  entered  one  of  the  numerous  small 
eating-houses  that  make  London  a  delight 
to  the  lover  of  the  chop  in  the  fulness  of  its 
glory.  When  we  were  seated  and  the  lunch 
eon  ordered  Barker  began. 

"  I  have  led  a  very  unhappy  life.  I  was 
born  in  India  thirty-nine  years  ago,  and  while 
my  every  act  has  been  as  open  and  as  free 
of  wrong  as  are  those  of  an  infant,  I  have 
constantly  been  beset  by  such  untoward 
affairs  as  this  in  which  you  have  rendered 
such  inestimable  service.  At  the  age  of  five, 
in  Calcutta,  I  was  in  peril  of  my  liberty  on 
the  score  of  depravity,  although  I  never  com 
mitted  any  act  that  could  in  any  sense  be 
called  depraved.  The  main  cause  of  my 
trouble  at  that  time  was  a  small  girl  of  ten 
whose  sight  was  partially  destroyed  by  the 
fiendish  act  of  some  one  who,  according  to 
her  statement,  wantonly  hurled  a  piece  of 
broken  glass  into  one  of  her  eyes.  The  girl 
said  it  was  I  who  did  it,  although  at  the 
176 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

time  it  was  done,  according  to  my  mother's 
testimony,  I  was  playing  in  her  room  and  in 
her  plain  view.  That  alone  would  not  have 
been  a  very  serious  matter  for  me,  because 
the  injured  child  might  have  been  herself 
responsible  for  her  injury,  but  in  a  childish 
spirit  of  fear,  afraid  to  say  so,  and,  not  re 
alizing  the  enormity  of  the  charge,  have  laid 
it  at  the  door  of  any  one  of  her  playmates 
she  saw  fit.  She  stuck  to  her  story,  however, 
and  there  were  many  who  believed  that  she 
spoke  the  truth  and  that  my  mother,  in  an 
endeavor  to  keep  me  out  of  trouble,  had 
stated  what  was  not  true." 

"But  you  were  innocent,  of  course?"  I 
said. 

"  I  am  sorry  you  think  it  necessary  to  ask 
that,"  he  replied,  his  pallid  face  flushing 
with  a  not  unnatural  indignation;  "and  I 
decline  to  answer  it,"  he  added.  "I  have 
made  a  practice  of  late,  when  I  am  in  trouble 
or  in  any  way  under  suspicion,  to  let  others 
do  my  pleading  and  prove  my  innocence. 
But  you  didn't  mean  to  be  like  your  friend 
Parton,  I  know,  and  I  cannot  be  angry  with 
a  man  who  has  done  so  much  for  me  as  you 
M  177 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

have  —  so  let  it  pass.  I  was  saying  that 
standing  alone  the  accusation  of  that  young 
girl  would  not  have  been  serious  in  its  ef 
fects  in  view  of  my  mother's  testimony,  had 
not  a  seeming  corroboration  come  three 
days  later,  when  another  child  was  reported 
to  have  been  pushed  over  an  embankment 
and  maimed  for  life  by  no  less  a  person 
than  my  poor  innocent  self.  This  time  I 
was  again,  on  my  mother's  testimony,  at  her 
side ;  but  there  were  witnesses  of  the  crime, 
and  they  every  one  of  them  swore  to  my 
guilt,  and  as  a  consequence  we  found  it  ad 
visable  to  leave  the  home  that  had  been 
ours  since  my  birth,  and  to  come  to  England. 
My  father  had  contemplated  returning  to 
his  own  country  for  some  time,  and  the  rep 
utation  that  I  had  managed  unwittingly  to 
build  up  for  myself  in  Calcutta  was  of  a  sort 
that  made  it  easier  for  him  to  make  up  his 
mind.  He  at  first  swore  that  he  would  fer 
ret  out  the  mystery  in  the  matter,  and  would 
go  through  Calcutta  with  a  drag-net  if  neces 
sary  to  find  the  possible  other  boy  who  so 
resembled  me  that  his  outrageous  acts  were 
put  upon  my  shoulders ;  but  people  had  be- 
178 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

gun  to  make  up  their  minds  that  there  was 
not  only  something  wrong  about  me,  but 
that  my  mother  knew  it  and  had  tried  to  get 
me  out  of  my  scrapes  by  lying — so  there  was 
nothing  for  us  to  do  but  leave." 

"  And  you  never  solved  the  mystery  ?"  I 
queried. 

"  Well,  not  exactly,"  returned  Barker, 
gazing  abstractedly  before  him.  "  Not  ex 
actly;  but  I  have  a  theory,  based  upon  the 
bitterest  kind  of  experience,  that  I  know 
what  the  trouble  is." 

"  You  have  a  double  ?"  I  asked. 

"  You  are  a  good  guesser,"  he  replied  ; 
"and  of  all  unhanged  criminals  he  is  the 
very  worst." 

There  was  a  strange  smile  on  his  lips  as 
Carleton  Barker  said  this.  His  tone  was 
almost  that  of  one  who  was  boasting — in 
fact,  so  strongly  was  I  impressed  with  his 
appearance  of  conceit  when  he  estimated 
the  character  of  his  double,  that  I  felt  bold 
enough  to  say : 

"  You  seem  to  be  a  little  proud  of  it,  in 
spite  of  all." 

Barker  laughed. 

179 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE     MET 

"I  can't  help  it,  though  he  has  kept  me 
on   tenter- hooks  for  a  lifetime,"  he  said. 
"We  all  feel  a  certain  amount  of  pride  in 
the  success  of  those  to  whom  we  are  related, 
either  by  family  ties  or  other  shackles  like 
those  with  which  I  am  bound  to  my  murder 
ous  alter  ego.     I  knew  an  Englishman  once 
who  was  so  impressed  with  the  notion  that 
he  resembled  the  great  Napoleon  that  he 
conceived  the    most  ardent  hatred  for  his 
own  country  for  having  sent  the  illustrious 
Frenchman   to   St.  Helena.     The  same  in 
fluence — a  very  subtle  one— I  feel.     Here  is 
a  man  who  has  maimed  and  robbed   and 
murdered  for  years,  and  has  never  yet  been 
apprehended.     In  his  chosen  calling  he  has 
been  successful,  and  though  I  have  been 
put  to  my  trumps  many  a  time  to  save  my 
neck  from  the  retribution  that  should  have 
been  his,  I  can't  help  admiring  the  fellow, 
though  I'd  kill  him  if  he  stood  before  me !" 
"And  are  you  making  any  effort  to  find 
him  ?" 

"I  am,  of   course,"   said  Barker;  "that 
has  been  my  life-work.     I  am  fortunately 
possessed   of  means   enough  to  live  on,  so 
1 80 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

that  I  can  devote  all  my  time  to  unravelling 
the  mystery.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  I 
have  acquainted  myself  with  the  element  of 
London  with  which,  as  you  have  noticed, 
I  am  very  familiar.  The  life  these  criminals 
are  leading  is  quite  as  revolting  to  me  as  it 
is  to  you,  and  the  scenes  you  and  I  have 
witnessed  together  are  no  more  unpleasant 
to  you  than  they  are  to  me;  but  what  can  I 
do  ?  The  man  lives  and  must  be  run  down. 
He  is  in  England,  I  am  certain.  This  latest 
diversion  of  his  has  convinced  me  of  that." 

"Well,"  said  I,  rising,  "you  certainly 
have  my  sympathy,  Mr.  Barker,  and  I  hope 
your  efforts  will  meet  with  success.  I  trust 
you  will  have  the  pleasure  of  seeing  the  oth 
er  gentleman  hanged." 

"Thank  you,"  he  said,  with  a  queer  look 
in  his  eyes,  which,  as  I  thought  it  over  after 
wards,  did  not  seem  to  be  quite  as  appropri 
ate  to  his  expression  of  gratitude  as  it  might 
have  been. 

Ill 

WHEN  Barker  and  I  parted  that  day  it 
was  for  a  longer  period  than  either  of  us 

iSi 


GHOSTS     I     HAVE     MET 

dreamed,  for  upon  my  arrival  at  my  lodg 
ings  I  found  there  a  cable  message  from 
New  York,  calling  me  back  to  my  labors. 
Three  days  later  I  sailed  for  home,  and  five 
years  elapsed  before  I  was  so  fortunate  as 
to  renew  my  acquaintance  with  foreign 
climes.  Occasionally  through  these  years 
Parton  and  I  discussed  Barker,  and  at  no 
time  did  my  companion  show  anything 
but  an  increased  animosity  towards  our 
strange  Keswick  acquaintance.  The  men 
tion  of  his  name  was  sufficient  to  drive 
Parton  from  the  height  of  exuberance  to  a 
state  of  abject  depression. 

"I  shall  not  feel  easy  while  that  man 
lives,"  he  said.  "  I  think  he  is  a  minion  of 
Satan.  There  is  nothing  earthly  about  him." 

"Nonsense,"  said  I.  "Just  because  a 
man  has  a  bad  face  is  no  reason  for  suppos 
ing  him  a  villain  or  a  supernatural  creature." 

"No,"  Parton  answered;  "but  when  a 
man's  veins  hold  blood  that  saturates  and 
leaves  no  stain,  what  are  we  to  think  ?" 

I  confessed  that  this  was  a  point  beyond 
me,  and,  by  mutual  consent,  we  dropped 
the  subject. 

182 


AND    SOME     OTHERS 

One  night  Parton  came  to  my  rooms  white 
as  a  sheet,  and  so  agitated  that  for  a  few 
minutes  he  could  not  speak.  He  dropped, 
shaking  like  a  leaf,  into  my  reading-chair 
and  buried  his  face  in  his  hands.  His  at 
titude  was  that  of  one  frightened  to  the  very 
core  of  his  being.  When  I  questioned  him 
first  he  did  not  respond.  He  simply  groaned. 
I  resumed  my  reading  for  a  few  moments, 
and  then  looking  up  observed  that  Parton 
had  recovered  somewhat  and  was  now  gaz 
ing  abstractedly  into  the  fire. 

"Well,"  I  said,  "feeling  better?" 

"Yes,"  he  answered,  slowly.  "But  it 
was  a  shock." 

"  What  was  ?"  I  asked.  "  You've  told  me 
nothing  as  yet." 

"  I've  seen  Barker." 

"No!"  I  cried.     "Where?" 

"In  a  back  alley  down-town,  where  I  had 
to  go  on  a  hospital  call.  There  was  a  row 
in  a  gambling-hell  in  Hester  Street.  Two 
men  were  cut  and  I  had  to  go  with  the  am 
bulance.  Both  men  will  probably  die,  and 
no  one  can  find  any  trace  of  the  murderer; 
but  I  know  who  he  is.  He  was  Carleton 
183 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE    MET 

Barker  and  no  one  else.  I  passed  him  in 
the  alley  on  the  way  in,  and  I  saw  him  in 
the  crowd  when  I  came  out." 

"  Was  he  alone  in  the  alley  ?"  I  asked. 
Parton  groaned  again. 

"  That's  the  worst  of  it,"  said  he.  "  He 
was  not  alone.  He  was  with  Carleton 
Barker." 

"  You  speak  in  riddles,"  said  I. 

"  I  saw  in  riddles,"  said  Parton  ;  "  for  as 
truly  as  I  sit  here  there  were  two  of  them, 
and  they  stood  side  by  side  as  I  passed 
through,  alike  as  two  peas,  and  crime  writ 
ten  on  the  pallid  face  of  each." 

"  Did  Barker  recognize  you  ?" 

"  I  think  so,  for  as  I  passed  he  gasped — 
both  of  them  gasped,  and  as  I  stopped  to 
speak  to  the  one  I  had  first  recognized  he 
had  vanished  as  completely  as  though  he  had 
never  been,  and  as  I  turned  to  address  the 
other  he  was  shambling  off  into  the  dark 
ness  as  fast  as  his  legs  could  carry  him." 

I  was  stunned.  Barker  had  been  mysteri 
ous  enough  in  London.  In  New  York  with 
his  double,  and  again  connected  with  an 
atrocity,  he  became  even  more  so,  and  I  be- 
184 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

gan  to  feel  somewhat  towards  him  as  had 
Parton  from  the  first.  The  papers  next 
morning  were  not  very  explicit  on  the  sub 
ject  of  the  Hester  Street  trouble,  but  they 
confirmed  Parton's  suspicions  in  his  and 
my  own  mind  as  to  whom  the  assassins 
were.  The  accounts  published  simply 
stated  that  the  wounded  men,  one  of  whom 
had  died  in  the  night  and  the  other  of 
whom  would  doubtless  not  live  through  the 
day,  had  been  set  upon  and  stabbed  by  two 
unknown  Englishmen  who  had  charged 
them  with  cheating  at  cards ;  that  the  as 
sailants  had  disappeared,  and  that  the  po 
lice  had  no  clew  as  to  their  whereabouts. 

Time  passed  and  nothing  further  came  to 
light  concerning  the  Barkers,  and  gradually 
Parton  and  I  came  to  forget  them.  The 
following  summer  I  went  abroad  again,  and 
then  came  the  climax  to  the  Barker  episode, 
as  we  called  it.  I  can  best  tell  the  story  of 
that  climax  by  printing  here  a  letter  written 
by  myself  to  Parton.  It  was  penned  within 
an  hour  of  the  supreme  moment,  and  while 
it  evidences  my  own  mental  perturbation  in 
its  lack  of  coherence,  it  is  none  the  less 
185 


GHOSTS     I     HAVH    MET 

an  absolutely  truthful  account  of  what  hap 
pened.     The  letter  is  as  follows  : 

"  LONDON,  July  18,  18— . 

"Mv  DEAR  PARTON, — You  once  said  to 
me  that  you  could  not  breathe  easily  while 
this  world  held  Carleton  Barker  living.  You 
may  now  draw  an  easy  breath,  and  many  of 
them,  for  the  Barker  episode  is  over.  Barker 
is  dead,  and  I  flatter  myself  that  I  am  doing 
very  well  myself  to  live  sanely  after  the  ex 
periences  of  this  morning. 

"  About  a  week  after  my  arrival  in  En«-- 
land  a  horrible  tragedy  was  enacted  in  the 
Seven  Dials  district.  A  woman  was  the 
victim,  and  a  devil  in  human  form  the  per 
petrator  of  the  crime.  The  poor  creature 
was  literally  hacked  to  pieces  in  a  manner 
suggesting  the  hand  of  Jack  the  Ripper,  but 
in  this  instance  the  murderer,  unlike  Jack, 
was  caught  red-handed,  and  turned  out  to 
be  no  less  a  person  than  Carleton  Barker. 
He  was  tried  and  convicted,  and  sentenced 
to  be  hanged  at  twelve  o'clock  to-day. 

"When  I  heard  of  Barker's  trouble  I 
went,  as  a  matter  of  curiosity  solely,  to  the 
186 


AND    SOME     OTHERS 

trial,  and  discovered  in  the  clock  the  man  you 
and  I  had  encountered  at  Keswick.  That 
is  to  say,  he  resembled  our  friend  in  every 
possible  respect.  If  he  were  not  Barker  he 
was  the  most  perfect  imitation  of  Barker 
conceivable.  Not  a  feature  of  our  Barker 
but  was  reproduced  in  this  one,  even  to  the 
name.  But  he  failed  to  recognize  me.  He 
saw  me,  I  know,  because  I  felt  his  eyes 
upon  me,  but  in  trying  to  return  his  gaze  I 
quailed  utterly  before  him.  I  could  not 
look  him  in  the  eye  without  a  feeling  of  the 
most  deadly  horror,  but  I  did  see  enough  of 
him  to  note  that  he  regarded  me  only  as 
one  of  a  thousand  spectators  who  had 
flocked  into  the  court -room  during  the 
progress  of  the  trial.  If  it  were  our  Barker 
who  sat  there  his  dissemblance  was  remark 
able.  So  coldly  did  he  look  at  me  that  I 
began  to  doubt  if  he  really  were  the  man  we 
had  met ;  but  the  events  of  this  morning  have 
changed  my  mind  utterly  on  that  point. 
He  was  the  one  we  had  met,  and  I  am  now 
convinced  that  his  story  to  me  of  his  double 
was  purely  fictitious,  and  that  from  begin 
ning  to  end  there  has  been  but  one  Barker. 
187 


GHOSTS    I    HAVE    MET 

"  The  trial  was  a  speedy  one.  There  was 
nothing  to  be  said  in  behalf  of  the  prisoner, 
and  within  five  days  of  his  arraignment  he 
was  convicted  and  sentenced  to  the  extreme 
penalty — that  of  hanging — and  noon  to-day 
was  the  hour  appointed  for  the  execution. 
I  was  to  have  gone  to  Richmond  to-day  by 
coach,  but  since  Barker's  trial  I  have  been 
in  a  measure  depressed.  I  have  grown  to 
dislike  the  man  as  thoroughly  as  did  you, 
and  yet  I  was  very  much  affected  by  the 
thought  that  he  was  finally  to  meet  death 
upon  the  scaffold.  I  could  not  bring  myself 
to  participate  in  any  pleasures  on  the  day 
of  his  execution,  and  in  consequence  I  gave 
up  my  Richmond  journey  and  remained  all 
morning  in  my  lodgings  trying  to  read.  It 
was  a  miserable  effort.  I  could  not  con 
centrate  my  mind  upon  my  book — no  book 
could  have  held  the  slightest  part  of  my  at 
tention  at  that  time.  My  thoughts  were  all 
for  Carleton  Barker,  and  I  doubt  if,  when 
the  clock  hands  pointed  to  half  after  eleven, 
Barker  himself  was  more  apprehensive  over 
what  was  to  come  than  I.  I  found  myself 
holding  my  watch  in  my  hand,  gazing  at  the 
iSS 


AND    SOME    OTHERS 

dial  and  counting  the  seconds  which  must 
intervene  before  the  last  dreadful  scene  of 
a  life  of  crime.  I  would  rise  from  my  chair 
and  pace  my  room  nervously  for  a  few  min 
utes  ;  then  I  would  throw  myself  into  my 
chair  again  and  stare  at  my  watch.  This 
went  on  nearly  all  the  morning — in  fact, 
until  ten  minutes  before  twelve,  when  there 
came  a  slight  knock  at  my  door.  I  put 
aside  my  nervousness  as  well  as  I  could, 
and,  walking  to  the  door,  opened  it. 

"  I  wonder  that  I  have  nerve  to  write  of 
it,  Parton,  but  there  upon  the  threshold, 
clad  in  the  deepest  black,  his  face  pallid  as 
the  head  of  death  itself  and  his  hands  shak 
ing  like  those  of  a  palsied  man,  stood  no 
less  a  person  than  Carleton  Barker ! 

"  I  staggered  back  in  amazement  and  he 
followed  me,  closing  the  door  and  locking 
it  behind  him. 

"  '  What  would  you  do  ?'  I  cried,  regard 
ing  his  act  with  alarm,  for,  candidly,  I  was 
almost  abject  with  fear. 

"  '  Nothing — to  you !'  he  said.    '  You  have 
been  as  far  as  you  could  be  my  friend.    The 
other,    your     companion     of    Keswick'- 
189 


GHOSTS    I     HAVE     MET 

meaning     you,    of    course — 'was    my    en 
emy.' 

"I  was  glad  you  were  not  with  us,  my 
dear  Parton.  I  should  have  trembled  for 
your  safety. 

"  '  How  have  you  managed  to  escape  ?'  I 
asked. 

"  '  I  have  not  escaped,'  returned  Barker. 
*  But  I  soon  shall  be  free  from  my  accursed 
double.' 

"  Here  he  gave  an  unearthly  laugh  and 
pointed  to  the  clock. 

"'Ha,  ha!'  he  cried.  'Five  minutes 
more  —  five  minutes  more  and  I  shall  be 
free.' 

'"Then  the  man  in  the  dock  was  not 
you  ?'  I  asked. 

"'The  man  in  the  dock,'  he  answered, 
slowly,  'is  even  now  mounting  the  gallows, 
whilst  I  stand  here.' 

"  He  trembled  a  little  as  he  spoke,  and 
lurched  forward  like  a  drunken  man  ;  but 
he  soon  recovered  himself,  grasping  the 
back  of  my  chair  convulsively  with  his  long 
white  fingers. 

"  '  In  two  minutes  more,'  he  whispered, 
190 


AND     SOME     OTHERS 

'the  rope  will  be  adjusted  about  his  neck; 
the  black  cap  is  even  now  being  drawn  over 
his  cursed  features,  and — ' 

"  Here  he  shrieked  with  laughter,  and, 
rushing  to  the  window,  thrust  his  head  out 
and  literally  sucked  the  air  into  his  lungs, 
as  a  man  with  a  parched  throat  would  have 
drank  water.  Then  he  turned  and,  totter 
ing  back  to  my  side,  hoarsely  demanded 
some  brandy. 

"  It  was  fortunately  at  hand,  and  pre 
cisely  as  the  big  bells  in  Westminster  be 
gan  to  sound  the  hour  of  noon,  he  caught 
up  the  goblet  and  held  it  aloft. 

"'To  him  !'  he  cried. 

"And  then,  Parton,  standing  before  me 
in  my  lodgings,  as  truly  as  I  write,  he  re 
mained  fixed  and  rigid  until  the  twelfth 
stroke  of  the  bells  sounded,  when  he  liter 
ally  faded  from  my  sight,  and  the  goblet, 
falling  to  the  floor,  was  shattered  into  count 
less  atoms !" 


THE    END 


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